Women's Tennis 3/10/2010 3:00:00 AM Southern Utah Athletics

T-Birds Travel For Dual in Las Vegas

      Southern Utah University's women's tennis team starts its series of fourteen straight matches in the Las Vegas with the Dual In Las Vegas this Sunday, where the Thunderbirds will take on Long Island and Cal State Bakersfield University.
      SUU faces Long Island University on Sunday at 4:00 p.m. (PST) and meets Cal State Bakersfield University on Monday, also at 4:00 p.m. (PST).
      The T-Birds will take a 3-2 record into Sunday's match. SUU will come into to the game after two tough losses during their three-match trip to the Bay area this last weekend. Southern Utah started the California road trip with a promising 9-0 win over Division-II Dominican University; however, they lost the next two games against University of San Francisco, 0-9, and San Jose State University, 2-7. During the last match against SJSU, the T-Birds' No. 1 Ksusha Nazarova and No.2 Olga Tatarchenko accounted for the SUU's only two points, winning their single matches, 6-4, 6-4 and 6-3, 6-3, respectively.
     Long Island University enters Sunday's match at 1-2 record after a 4-3 loss to its local rival Columbia. Prior to the Columbia match, the Long Island Blackbirds lost, 1-5, to Massachusetts and won, 4-3, over Albany. Cal State Bakersfield carries a 0-10 winless record. Bakersfield will play University of Houston on Sunday before the SUU match on Monday. The Bakersfield Roadrunners and T-Birds played the same opponent during their last games, both losing to San Jose State, 1-4 and 2-5, respectively.

      Up Next: The Thunderbirds will host UMKC, Oral Roberts, Western Illinois and Centenary in Las Vegas during their first Summit League Cluster, starting on March 18 agaist UMKC.

     Head Coach Lenny Lee (Temple, 1977) is in his 17th season as head coach of the T-Bird women's tennis program. Coach Lee has led the program since its inception in 1994. Last season, Lee guided SUU to a 10-10 record and a third-place finish in The Summit League championships. Lee, who has earned Summit League Coach of the Year honors the last two seasons, has compiled a career dual match record of 210-202 through 27 years of coaching, including a 53-36 Summit League mark. His teams have claimed six conference or district championships and over the past 11 years his program has been one of the most successful at Southern Utah University.

      T-Bird Notes: So far the Thunderbirds are 15-15 in single matches and 7-8 in double matches. Olga Tatarchenko (No.2) carries the best record for the Thunderbirds with four wins and one loss in the singles. She also shares the best record in doubles with her teammate Ksusha Nazarova (No.1), recording three wins and two losses.

     T-Birds Picked Third In Summit: Southern Utah was picked to finish third in the Summit League this season, by a vote of the conference's coaches. The Thunderbirds received 45 points with one first-place vote to finish behind top pick and defending champion IPFW (61 points, five first-place votes) and Oral Roberts (57 points with three first-place votes). Western Illinois was tabbed to finish fourth with 43 points, followed by UMKC (42), IUPUI (26), Oakland (23), South Dakota State (18) and Centenary (9).

      Last Time Out: Southern Utah's tennis team lost its last two matches during the Thunderbirds' three-match trip to the San Francisco Bay area. After winning 9-0 over Dominican University on Friday, the T-Birds went through a tough 7-0 loss against University of San Francisco at Golden Gate Park on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, the Thunderbirds faced San Jose State but also came up short, 5-2, after losing two of six singles matches and all three doubles matches.
     During the last match against San Jose State, the Russian duo of No.1 Ksusha Nazarova and No.2 Olga Tatarchenko accounted for the SUU's only two points, winning their single matches, 6-4, 6-4 and 6-3, 6-3, respectively.

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Players Mentioned

Ksusha Johnson: 5' 5"; Freshman

Players Mentioned

Ksusha Johnson
: 5' 5"; Freshman

Players Mentioned

Ksusha Johnson

Players Mentioned

Ksusha Johnson