Time for a new thread, with a lot of news to catch up on.

UT has given 3 year contract extensions to both women's coach Mauntler and men's coach Wermer, both having won MACCs last year. I am not sure what their previous deals were, but often contracts for those non-revenue sports are year-to-year, so 3 year extensions seem like big deals. Both have been at UT for 20+ years.

Fall play has started, and good results so far from both teams. A couple highlights:
- The women played in BG's "Dynamic Duos" Tourney, an unusual event where teams compete in pairs, playing both singles and doubles against pairs from other schools. UT went 24-12. Last year's MAC PoY Cassie Alcala was teamed with true Freshman Gaby Rondon and they went 12-0 against pairs from Valpo, DePaul, DePaul and YSU.
- Pawit Sornlaksup, also reigning MAC PoY, was the #2 seed in the Milwaukee Classic and won his 1st three matches over players from VCU, Nebraska and Illinois before having to retire in the semifinals.

The men have added 3 freshmen this year from Canada, Thailand and Australia. The women added 2 freshman, Rondon who is from Florida and another freshman from Spain. Plus they add transfers from Cincinnati and Nevada.

Finally, I see the the women have picked up a verbal commit from 2024 Catherine Rhegness from Ottawa Hills. Bobalat has her ranked as the 7th best player in Ohio, and the 187th recruit in the country. TennisRPI has her as the 81st ranked recruit.

No story up yet on the UT website, but it appears that the Rockets are doing quite well at the ITA Midwest Regionals at UM.

Pawit Sornlaksup has won 3 matches so far and is in the quarter finals. He beat players from Wisconsin, Northwestern and Illinois. The Illinois player, Karlis Ozolins from Latvia, is currently the 11th ranked player in the country. Wow. Pawit plays Jack Anthrop from Ohio State in the quarters who is ranked about the same as Sornlaksup - Anthrop 81, Sornlaksup 80.

Other Rockets also had good showings, with Marko Galic wining three matches in qualifying to make it to the main draw, before losing to a player from Notre Dame. And Freshman Cole Cozens from Canada won 2 matches in qualifying before losing to a player from NIU. Mathias Olivero also won two matches before losing to a player, again, from NIU (who was MAC freshman of the year last season.) Two other freshmen lost in the 1st round of qualifying.

Women's tennis signs two: The #2 ranked player in Virginia, Jacklynka Scholten which was previously reported, and the #2 ranked player in Minnesota, Annika Munson. Scholten reportedly the #77 ranked player in the country, although I see her as #80 in the Babolat rankings today.

https://utrockets.com/news/2023/11/8/wom...g-day.aspx

Also, Rocket men's player Pawit Sornlaksup named MAC Scholar Athlete of the Week this week.

Rockets women sign another freshman, Neha Guru from Irving, TX. Eighth ranked player in Texas, 126th in the country by the Babolat rankings.

Rockets' recruiting reach has really expanded in the last few years.

Spring season has started and the men have been working through a brutal OOC schedule, playing (among others) Indiana, Illinois, #1 Ohio State and Penn State. After losing the 1st three BigTen matches, the Rockets beat Penn State yesterday, 4-3, for their 2nd P5 win in 2 seasons. They had beaten Purdue last year.

Pawit Sornlaksup is continuing his incredible play. He beat Indiana's #1 in straight sets, and was up a set against Illinois' #1 (who is ranked #17 in the NCAA) before the match was called early due to UT already losing 4 other matches. He got his 44th straight dual match win against Butler. Unfortunately, the streak came to an end against OSU, where it took an 11-9 3rd set to beat him. His opponent, OSU's #1, strangely is not ranked in the NCAA rankings but is ranked about 430 in the world professional rankings, which is like 600 places higher than most all the top ranked NCAA players. (Pawit is ranked 1102 in those same pro rankings.) He started his win streak up again against Penn State.

The women have only played 1 match so far, beating Dayton 4-3.

Both teams have a lot of new faces this year, so it remains to be seen whether they can repeat as MAC champs, but they were both picked to finish 1st in the MAC preseason polls.

UT's Shalini Tallamraju was MAC Singles PoW.

The Rockets played 2 matches in West Virginia over the weekend, loosing a tough one to WVU 3-4. WVU was 7-1 coming in and has beaten some other good teams by bigger margins. Then they played William and Mary who was an NCAA tourney team last year, and beat them 4-3.

Rocket women won 2 matches over the weekend, over Duquesne and YSU. Reportedly, Coach Mauntler notched her 250th win as a Rocket coach. Wow.

Also, reported that Rocket #1 Cassie Alcala is now leads the Rockets in all-time combined singles/doubles wins, getting win #155 and passing Martina Wodzinski. She already had the most singles wins.

BCSN Story on the international look of the men's tennis team.

And another BCSN Story on women's tennis coach Mauntler

Rocket women beat BG 6-1 today, to start out MAC play 3-0

Women keep winning, beating Miami 5-2 today to stay undefeated in MAC play. MU was also undefeated coming in. Every other team has at least 2 losses.

Men are not doing as well. Lost to Ball State 4-3 today, their 3rd conference loss.

Rocket women beat Miami for the 2nd time, 4-3 on the road, to stay undefeated in MAC play. They have a 2 game cushion over every other team.

The men beat UIC to go to 5-3 in conference play.

UT women stay undefeated, beating BG 7-0. They are now 6-0 in MAC play.

The men beat 1st place NIU 6-1.

The ladies clinched their 2nd straight regular season championship with a 6-1 win over Buffalo. They bounced back from a stumble last week, losing 4-3 to EMU of all teams. They are 8-1 now, with 1 more match to play against Ball State.

The men's tournament is this weeking, hosted by Toledo. The Rockets are the 3 seed, and play 2 seed NIU on Saturday. They split the season series with the Huskies, each team strangely winning 6-1 at home, although UT's #1 Pawit Sornlaksup did not play singles in the match in DeKalb. The winner plays the winner of WMU vs BSU on Sunday. Interestingly, the Rockets split the series with both WMU and BSU as well, although the scores were closer.

Rocket men beat NIU 4-0 today to advance to the finals. They play WMU tomorrow at home at 1PM

Rockets sweep the post-season awards again winning Coach of the Year and Player of the Year on both the women's and men's teams, just like last season. Sornlaksup has now won the PoY award three straight seasons which is pretty darn impressive. Alacala wins the award for the 3rd straight year on the women's side too, again impressive. Both squads put 3 players on the all-MAC teams.

The women's MAC championships begin tomorrow in Toledo with UT playing EMU at 10AM.

Rocket ladies beat EMU in a close one, 4-2 to advance to the championship match tomorrow against the winner of Miami vs WMU

(04-26-2024 12:56 PM)northcoastRocket Wrote:  Rocket ladies beat EMU in a close one, 4-2 to advance to the championship match tomorrow against the winner of Miami vs WMU

Extremely close. Alcala won on court #1 in a third-set tiebreaker after being behind 5-1 in the set. When the match ended, the Rockets were losing on the #5 court 6-5 in the third set.

Toledo men draw Illinois in the 1st round of the NCAAs, playing at Kentucky.

Rockets already played them this year, in Champaign, losing 4-0. Pawit led his match but didn't get to finish it there.

Rocket women play 12 seed Ohio State in Columbus