pi6- The Michigan Daily - SPORTSMonday - April 14, 1997

:M' women's netters undefeated

in new

Tisch Tennis Center

'Michigan experiences best season to date in new complex at 6-0

-By Alan Gomez
c nDaiy Sports Writer
The Michigan women's tennis team
."played its first match in the new Varsity
.,Tnnis Center on Feb. 15, against Western
Michigan.
The Wolverines won that match, 9-0, and
ohave since established a home court advan-
Aage.
S Michigan has won all six of its matches
in= the Tisch Tennis Center, as it is now
" Walled.
7 ig Ten opponents Illinois, Michigan
State, Purdue, Minnesota and Iowa have all
l.gie down in the new big house, and they
khave gone down hard.
; Only the Fighting Illini and the
Boilermakers have managed to pick up
rnpoints in their defeats, both scraping out
,'one point each.
-The other four opponents have been shut
This weekend's sweep of the Golden
*: phers and the Hawkeyes lifted the
f -Wolverines' record at home to 6-0 with
;only one more home match remaining,
Swhen they face Penn State on Saturday.
''a OWe love the new facility," senior Sarah
rCyganiak said.
;.As the eldest member of the team,
kCyganiak was there when the Wolverines
UW44 to use the Liberty Sports Complex as
;theit home.
" E'ight players on the team had to share

"It's going to help
a lot, because people
are going to see the
new facility, and
they're going to see
that this is a serious
program"
-- Sarah Cyganiak
Michigan tennis player, on the
new Tisch Tennis Center
just two courts and had to be fit into the
schedule of the tennis center.
"In previous years, we had to go from
building to building before practice,"
Cyganiak said.
The entire situation was detrimental to
the team, because the players basically did-
n't have a place to call home.
Unfortunately for Cyganiak, Saturday's
match at the new tennis center will be her
last.
Cyganiak has gone 6-0 in singles and
doubles in the pew complex and hopes to
finish her career there undefeated.

For the others, like sophomore Tumeka
Harris, the center will be something around
which to continue building.
"The practices are a lot better," Harris
said. "We have more courts to ourselves
and more time to do what we want."
The Wolverines are experiencing a suc-
cessful inaugural season in the new center,
but it should be something that will ensure
their future success.
The Liberty complex was a decent place
to play, but it wasn't the type of place that
highly-touted recruits would be drooling
over.
"It's going to help a lot, because people
are going to see the new facility, and they're
going to see that this is a serious program,"
Cyganiak said.
The new complex arrived at the same
time as Michigan's most successful season
to date.
The Wolverines welcomed a group of
freshmen that have mixed -well with the
upperclassmen.
They are 9-0 in the Big Ten, 14-4 overall,
and have a lock on the Big Ten.
With this newfound conference domi-
nance and the promise of more talented
players coming in due to the new facility,
the only other thing left to improve the
Wolverines' performance in the upcoming
years is to add more home matches to the
schedule.

JEANNE SERVAAS/Daily
Tumeka Harris and the Wolverines are enjoying their new tennis complex. The Wolverines have gone
undefeated - 6-0 - in the new Varsity Tennis Complex, opened this year.

Michigan men rout Lions in Happy Valley


By John Friedberg that one.
Daily Sports Writer "I'm very, very pleased with the
nmprovement was definitely the way David has been playing," Eisner
tierne for the Michigan men's tennis said. "He and Matt Wright played
team over the weekend. The extremely well.
Wolverines (5-3 Big Ten, 7-10 over- Wright, playing at No. 2, beat
all) beat Penn State, 5-2, and there Mike Griesser, 6-4, 6-4. Griesser is a
were other things to be excited rarity among college players, as he
about, as well. plays a strictly serve and volley
" iMichigan took care of business in game.
1!Ahe singles competition, taking four Wright overcame the challenge of
of six matches from the Nittany Griesser's style with an array of
r tons (2-5, 9-7). But for only the passing shots and solid return of
second time in the Big Ten season, serve.
"IMUhigan took the doubles "The whole team must
t poiht. Up next * continue to improve on
F "The Wolverines took Tuesday both an individual and
' he combination of David Who: Notre Dame team basis," Eisner said.
Paradzik and Mikii Where: South Bend "The team has made sig-
Putszai, winning in a When: 3:30 p.m. nificant improvement, but
' siebreaker, but the doubles it must keep improving."
'_flflly scored, taking two' Saturday One player who contin-
-."of the three matches. Who: Northwestern ues to make strides is
"(The doubles) was a Where: Varsity sophomore Jake Raiton.
l .otcloser than it looked," Tennis center Raiton, who has been
0aiadzik said. "Miki and I When: 1 p.m. playing No. 5 singles,
blew a few match points, beat Eric Meditz, 6-4, 6-3.
we were able to hold on in the Raiton missed some of the fall sea-
Atibbreaker." son, recovering from shoulder
"Winning the doubles point is cru- surgery he had this summer.
cial for the Wolverines if they are to What made Raiton's comeback
-repeat as Big Ten champions. more difficult was the fact that it was
,The conference tournament is a his serving shoulder that was operat-
. team competition, and that one point ed on.
could make the difference in a close Raiton's victory raised his record
rtiatch. to 10-10 on the season. The .500
"Winning the doubles point is mark does not reflect how well he
1r' ifething that we have to continue has played lately. Raiton has won his
to do," Eisner said, past four matches, including
co Paradzik also showed some Michigan's lone victory against
4mprovement in his singles match, Minnesota.
,'bating Penn State's Michael Carter, "Jake's really been on a hot streak
7-5, 6-4. lately," Michigan assistant coach
T'1 o years ago, Paradzik and Dan Goldberg said. "He has been
q °CAtter played each other in the No. 3 playing the best tennis of his career
'g1u Paradzik won that match as lately.
''well, but he had to come back to win "We started slowly this year, but

NETTERS
Continued from Page 113
that the Gophers did. With their second
sweep of the weekend, the Wolverines
earned their ninth conference win in
impressive fashion.
The match ended with sophomore
Tumeka Harris battling Iowa's Erin
Wolverton almost 1 1/2 hours after all
the other matches were over.
With her iced-up teammates watch-
ing and cheering on, Harris finished off
the grueling three-set match by blank-
ing Wolverton in the third-set tie-break-
er.
"She really played hard, and her level
of play increased as the match went
on," Ritt said.
Freshman Danielle Lund cruised by
her opponent, 6-1, 6-0, and won her
10th-straight match. She has not lost a
match since the Wolverines fell to Wake
Forest over a month ago. Lund now has
the second-best conference mark on the
team: 8-1.
Team leaders Cyganiak and Hart
kept pushing up their win totals with
their 15th dual-match victories and
improved their conference marks to 9-
0.
Cyganiak teamed up with junior
Sora Moon as they won both their dou-
bles matches and are now 8-1 in the
conference. The win against
Minnesota marked their 25th victory
of the season.
Also sporting an 8-1 conference
record in doubles are Weggenman and
redshirt freshman Jen Boylan. The two

are now 12-6 in dual matches and
tied with the upperclassmen for the
team lead in doubles.
The two victories seem to Chave
Michigan primed for the tournaniet to
begin. But the Wolverines are trying not
to get ahead of themselves with Penn
State still remaining on their schedule.
"The focus all year has been t con-
centrate on what we have coming up,'
Ritt said. "We try not to think about 0
tournament. We're just concentrating
on Penn State.'
But with the way that the Wolverines
have handled the rest of the Big 1eq so
far this season, maybe they can afford
to take a peek at the tournament.
"This group has really worked hard
all year and they've been focused,' Ritt
said. "And if we continue to focus' on
the small things, then that's really all we
can do."
Apparently, that attention to detI
has been beneficial to Michigan. The
Wolverines' 9-0 Big Ten record is the
best they have ever had in the confer-
ence.
The only other time they finished
the regular season without a confer-
ence loss was in 1975. That yearjtheir
conference record was 2-0 ahd it
earned the Wolverines a fifth-phace
finish.
This season's undefeated mark is a
little more impressive. With, one
more conference match still to play
before Big Tens, the Wolverines don't
want to get ahead of themselves.
Then again, they're the only ona-teft
who can.

JOSH BIGGS/Daiy
The Michigan men's tennis team defeated Penn State this weekend, 5.2, in Happy
Valley. The Wolverines dominated the singles competition, taking four of six match-
es form the Nittany Lions.

Up next

everybody is really playing well right
now."
As for the other singles matches,
sophomore Will Farah improved to
22-13 on the season with a 6-1, 6-4
victory over Marc Dorfman. His
22nd victory gives him the team
lead.
At No. 6, freshman Brad

McFarlane lost a hard-fought, three-
set match to Lee Hecht, 6-3, 2-6, 6-1.
McFarlane has been playing well as of
late as well, raising his record to 8-6
on the season.
"McFarlane struggled a bit with
his confidence earlier," Goldberg
said. "But he has been playing solid-
ly as of late."'

Date
Saturday
4/24-27
5/2-4

Team/Event
Penn State

Time

Location

10 am. Varsity Tennis Center

Big Ten championships TBA
NCAA regionals TBA
NCAA championships TBA

West Lafayette
TBA
Palo Alto, Calif.

Woods' win brings down color barrier .

Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES _ Somehow it
seemed fitting, in the same week that
the United States stands poised to
celebrate the 50th anniversary of one
man breaking the color barrier, that
another barrier would come tumbling
down.
That, at least, is what many of
the old-timers at the clubhouse at
Chester L. Washington Golf Course
in south Los Angeles were saying as

they exuberantly celebrated Tiger
Woods' victory at the Masters in
Augusta, Ga., yesterday.
"This is big, this is really big,"
said Malcolm Vest, a 42-year-old
golfer. "It's like Jackie Robinson
playing in the major leagues. It's big-
ger."
Around the public Los Angeles
County golf course, used predomi-
nantly by blacks, it was "Tiger
Woods Day."

Normally, the players would be out
putting on the green, but this bright
sunny day the clubhouse was packed.
Nobody wanted to miss a mile-
stone in the making, when a young
golfer who less than four decades
ago would have been prohibited
from the Masters course ran away
with the title in a record-setting per-
formance.
"No one will have a Tiger by the
tail today," yelled out one golfer
viewing the television in the restau-
rant/bar and throwing his fist in the
air. This was not just Tiger's day, it
was a moment to be shared and
savored by the old-timers who
remember the days when blacks were
limited to caddying for white
golfers.
"This is the greatest thing that ever
happened to golf," exclaimed Mike

Williams, 50, a black golf pro. "This
was the next step."
Williams, a self-taught golfer, said
Woods' victory helped ease the pain
of the days when he was caddying in
segregated country club courses of
Joliet, Ill.
"Tiger has built his own bridge
and crossed over a river of preju-
dice," said Maggie Hathaway, a p
neer in forcing Los Angeles public
golf courses to open their doors to
blacks in the early 1960s.
Woods, whose mother is Asian and
whose father is black is no stranger
to the Washington golf course, mem-
bers said.
"Tiger's father would ask us to
play with him when he was younger,
about 16, just to make him toughe"
Williams recalled, adding: "Heco
beat us then."

You're invited to the 18th Annual
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Honor the Wonders

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The ceremony will honor outstanding contributions
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