Sunday, 03/28/2010

New Mexico dominant in final tune-up before MWC play

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. --- The University of New Mexico men’s tennis team wasted little time Sunday afternoon at the Linda Estes Tennis Center, taking apart visiting Northern Arizona, 7-0.
 
The Lobos, now 5-7 on the season, relinquished only five games combined to the Lumberjacks (8-6) during doubles play. New Mexico earned the doubles point for the first time in six matches, something not lost on coach Alan Dils.
 
“We’ve worked on a few things – especially in doubles,” Dils said. “We wanted to be more aggressive – more dynamic – which certainly we did. I thought we did a great job in doubles today.”
 
The Lobos’ No. 1 doubles team of Jadon Philips and Phil Anderson cruised past the Lumberjacks’ duo of Kevin Taylor and Josh Brown, 8-1. The score from the No. 3 match went identically in New Mexico’s favor, with Joe Wood and Carl Ho beating Hugo Ramadier and David Flodberg, 8-1. In the third doubles match, Ben Dunbar and Conor Berg beat NAU’s Patrick Schimmelbauer and Robin Pezzutto, 8-3.
 
“We had lots of energy from the start,” Dunbar said. “That’s something that coach expressed that we needed to do better from the last doubles matches that we’ve played.  We really tried to be positive and put as many balls away as possible. On every court we got off to a good start. That’s what we look for in our doubles matches.”
 
The Lobos made equally short work of the Lumberjacks during singles’ play, winning four of the six matches in just over an hour.
 
Phillips, Anderson and Wood each won their matches 6-2, 6-0, finishing within five minutes of each other. Berg finished before them all, getting past Ben Lantz in the No. 6 match 6-1, 6-0.
 
“Our focus was to get up in our matches and finish it off quickly,” Phillips said. “I think this was a good pre-conference match. We showed how good - how tough - we can be.”
 
Dunbar’s match was the only to go to three sets. The sophomore dropped the first set in the No. 1 match, 4-6, before winning the next two 6-0 and 6-1. Ho won the No. 2 match 6-3, 7-5.
 
“It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve played, so we were certainly hungry,” Dils said. “Not being able to go to Texas Tech and play a couple of matches there, we were just aching to play.”
 
Next up for the Lobos is their Mountain West Conference opener Thursday afternoon against Utah. Brigham Young and its No. 31 ranking visits New Mexico two days later on Saturday afternoon. Both matches are at 1 p.m. MT.
 
“Getting ready for conference, you couldn’t ask for anything better with the way we came out and played,” Dils said. “We did a really good job in doubles. With the exception of Ben’s first set, we did a really good job in singles.
 
“NAU is a good team. They’re a solid team. To come out and handle most of their guys pretty easily – at least score-wise – I was really pleased with that. (The Lumberjacks) were very dangerous. We kind of took it to them and didn’t let them breathe, which is exactly what we need to do for conference to be competitive.”