ABILENE – The Wildcats' nationally ranked men's and women's tennis teams are each embarking on their own competitive six-match Spring Break trip this week, which will take them through several Texas towns before heading west to Las Vegas for a major invitational.
ACU's No. 3 women's team (8-3) will first head to Kingsville Saturday for a neutral-site match vs. Laredo before facing the Javelinas for its first Lone Star Conference dual of 2013. The Wildcats' 14th-ranked men's team (8-5), meanwhile, will be in Houston Saturday for matches vs. Prairie View A&M and Rice before meeting the women in San Antonio for a Sunday doubleheader at Incarnate Word.
Both the Cardinals' men's and women's teams were part of last year's Lone Star Conference Championship semifinals and come into this weekend nationally ranked 19th and 33rd, respectively. The ACU women played the Cardinals once last year during the regular season and won 9-0, while the men beat UIW by scores of 7-2 and 5-1.
From there, ACU will fly to Las Vegas where it will meet a veritable Murderers' Row of teams, including the defending national champions from Armstrong Atlantic, plus the fifth-ranked teams from Hawai'i Pacific. The Wildcats also will battle with a Fresno Pacific program that boasts the 12th ranked men's and 28th-ranked women's teams.
The ACU women are coming off a very tough home loss vs. No. 4 Barry on Wednesday afternoon, which was its second straight defeat after winning seven in a row. The Buccaneers began the dual by winning two of three doubles and later captured four singles contests en route to a 6-3 win. The Wildcats, however, received quality play from senior
Laura Mongin, who won her seventh straight singles match to improve to 8-1, and earlier teamed with freshman
Kaysie Hermsdorf to gut out a 9-8 (9) win at No. 3 doubles.
Hermsdorf and Mongin are a perfect 7-0 this year, and have recorded six of their wins at the No. 3 position.
The men's team hasn't played since last weekend when it went 2-1 on the road against Temple College (W, 9-0), Baylor (L, 0-7) and St. Edward's (W, 6-3). The Wildcats' victory over the Hilltoppers was their first during the regular season since 2009.
Against St. Edward's, ACU won at the No. 1 and 3 positions in doubles before taking four of six singles matches at No. 1, 4, 5 and 6 - three of which came in straight sets.
Senior
Hans Hach won both of his matches, which raised his combined doubles and singles record to a staggering 21-4. Hach first teamed with sophomore
Guilherme Gesser to shutout the regionally ranked tandem of James Rogers and Maximo Agoglia, 8-0, and then beat Rogers again solo, 6-2, 6-3 at the top position.
