The Michigan Daily - Thursday, April 16, 1998 - 15A
Men's tenn
vital three-
Mark Francescutti
DiySports Writer
Crunch time has arrived for the
ehigan men's tennis team.
he Wolverines (6-0 Big Ten, 11-3
overall) will play three matches in the
next four days, including two against
top teams in the region. The crucial
weekend starts today against the No. 3
team in their region, Notre Dame (14-
6), at 2 p.m. at the Varsity Tennis
Center.
Michigan, ranked 4th in the midwest
,----- ...region, will
'Tday s match then travel to
o: Michigan vs. Evanston for
reDame a battle with
Er Varsity Tennis Center the No. 2
Naes 2pm a team in its
NotS. The lorecast calls
forrain, but ifthe <kies stay r e g i o n,
clear and the wind stays Northwestern
beIow 20 mph, Michigan (4-2 Big Ten,
WiZ play its first home 11-4 over-
ou match today all), on
* sthe Irish. Saturday,
nd finish on Sunday with a match
nst Wisconsin.
ast week, the Wolverines had three
atches spread out over seven days and
he fatigue showed a little in their third
atch against Penn State.
'So how can the Wolverines expect to
eep rolling with three in four days?
"We gave them a day off after Penn
tate and have just been fine tuning
hroughout the week," assistant coach
an Goldberg said. "I think we have a
v good chance to do well."
he task will be extremely difficult
ith two teams ranked ahead of
ichigan in the region, plus the fact
hat fatigue could set in against the
adgers.
Michigan's first opponent, the
ighting Irish, after winning 12 of 13
atches, dropped two straight 4-3
atches to top-10 nationally ranked
pponents last weekend - to No. 6 in
nation and No.1 regionally ranked
exas Tech
olations, a
UBBOCK, Texas (AP) -- Texas
has slashed athletic scholarships
md promised to forfeit perhaps dozens
f victories because of rules violations
or the last six years. It's up to the
CAA to decide if the self-imposed
unishment fits the crime.
Texas Tech announced the penalties
uesday before releasing a 1,250-page
esponse to 18 NCAA allegations lev-
led last October.
otball, baseball and men's basket-
a endured the brunt of the sanctions,
art of a three-year probation.
"It's just important to face the issues,
et it behind you and get it over with,"
thletic director Gerald Myers said.
The longer it lingers the more difficult
t's going to be for a lot of reasons.
hat's why it's important we've already
mposed really strong penalties.'
The school will state its case April
4-25 before the NCAA Committee on
ctions in Cleveland. The commit-
ee usually takes more than a month to
nete out punishment, if any.
Texas Tech admitted last October
hat four sports awarded too much
cholarship money and 76 athletes
ompeted while ineligible from 1991-
7; the number has increased to 81
fter recalculations, Texas Tech com-
liance director Bob Burton said.
n, Tuesday, the school accepted all
arts of 11 other charges related to
mproper benefits, academic wrongdo-
ng and a lack of institutional control in
oetball and men's basketball. Texas
is nears
-match run
Illinois and No. 7 in the nation Texas.
The common element in both of
those matches? The Irish lost the dou-
bles point.
So it would seem that all the
Wolverines have to do to win is take
two out of three doubles to secure the
doubles point and possibly a win.
Of course the Irish duos are 49-24
this season and Michigan's No. 3 dou-
bles have lost four straight.
And even if they win the doubles
point, the Wolverines would also have
to win three singles matches, which
should be extremely tough because the
Irish have a solid singles lineup.
Last year's ITA regional rookie of the
year, sophomore Ryan Sachire leads the
group along with senior Jakub
Pietrowski and junior Brian Patterson.
"Every spot on their team is pretty
good," Goldberg said. "Every match is
up for grabs."
Northwestern, Michigan's Saturday
opponent, also has a powerful singles
lineup.
In fact, the Wildcats appeared to be
the team to beat earlier in the season at
the Big Ten singles championships.
After all, Northwestern had four players
in the quarterfinals and two in the
finals, where No. 23 Marc Silva beat
his teammate No. 18 Alex Witt.
The Wildcats round out their singles
slots with another nationally ranked
player - No. 79 Doug Bohaboy.
"Their strength is in the top three
positions, but they have good players
down the entire lineup, Goldberg said.
But the singles players haven't
stepped forward in the big matches. The
Wildcats lost four of six singles battles
against Illinois earlier in the season, and
again on Saturday to Minnesota -- a
team that Michigan beat.
"They started out really hot, but
they've faltered in the past two weeks,
Goldberg said.
Besides, Michigan is on a roll lately.
Tennis faces lowly
Lions on Saturday
Last road match not expected to be tough
By Drew Beaver
Daily Sports Writer
Now this is what the Michigan
women's tennis team needs. A guar-
anteed 'W.' A match where the
Wolverines can relax and cruise to
victory.
Or can they? With the parity that
Saturday's match
Who: Michigan vs. Penn State
Where: State College
When: Saturday, 10 a.m.
Notables: The Wolveines are
making their final stop on a
five-game conference road
trip. Michigan is fighting for
seeding in the Big "Ten
;Tournament, and is looking to
make up ground on
conference leaders Wisconsin,
Purdue and Minnesota,
exists
the
Ten
year,
in
Big
this
it
seems that
the old
cliche is
ringing
true: Any
team can
beat any
other on
any given
day.
DANA IINNANE/Daily
Brook Blain and the rest of the Michigan tennis team will play three matches in
four days, including matches against Notre Dame, Northwestern and Penn State.
The Wolverines have won nine out of
their past 10 including six st-aight in the
Big Ten.
Senior Arvid Swan has been unstop-
pable recently and has won 11 straight.
Senior Brook Blain has returned to win
his last two matches after a short slump.
In addition to all that, David Paradzik
and Matt Wright, at the No. 1 and 2 sin-
i imposes penalty for
LWats NCAA sanctions
gles positions, have each beaten
Northwestern's top two singles players.
But, the fact remains that the
Wolverines will now face some of the
toughest competition yet this season.
"It boils down to who plays the best
at each position," Goldberg said.
"Against good teams you can't have any
weak spots."
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Well, maybe not any team. Penn
State has not managed to beat any
Big Ten opponents this season, and
is up against the defending confer-
ence champ this Saturday.
Michigan (6-2 Big Ten, 9-9 over-
all) travels to State College to face
the Nittany Lions in what should be
a sure win for the Wolverines on
Saturday.
The Wolverines' trip to Penn State
will mark the final stop in a five-
match road trip that began the first
weekend of April. They have man-
aged only three road wins in 10 tries
this season, and only one of their
past four road matches has resulted
in a victory.
Michigan is coming off an up-and-
down weekend, finding a way to pull
off a comeback win over Minnesota
but losing to Iowa. Both matches
went down to the final singles con-
test.
The Wolverines fell behind 3-1
against Minnesota, but ran off three
straight singles wins to capture the
victory. The victory was significant
for the Wolverines, because
Minnesota hadn't lost a Big Ten
match this season prior to its show-
down with the Wolverines.
The Wolverines nearly completed
their second comeback of the week-
end against Iowa, but could not get
the requisite four singles wins need-
ed to come back from the early 1-0
deficit after doubles play.
Michigan is still alive in the hunt
for the top seed at the Big Ten
Tournament, but needs to make up
some ground if they want to capture
that spot. Three teams - Wisconsin,
Purdue, and Minnesota - have just
one conference loss on the season.
Atop Michigan's list of priorities is
to improve its play in doubles. Last
weekend, the Wolverines won only one
doubles match in the contests against
Northwestern and Minnesota, and lost
two in 9-7 tiebreakers.
"We clearly have to play better
doubles," Michigan coach Bitsy Ritt
said. "We're digging holes for our-
selves, and in the end, it's just too
much."
A certain amount of inconsistency
has plagued the Wolverines this sea-
son.
Michigan has bested some of the
top teams in the conference, but both
Big Ten losses have come against
lower-ranked opponents. These are
also the only two losses the
Wolverines have to lower ranked
opponents.
Michigan is looking to get back
above .500 overall for the first time
since March 29, just after a weekend
that included important dual-match
victories over Ohio State and
Indiana.
The Wolverines cannot afford
another loss if they hope to clinch
the top spot at the Big Ten
Tournament. According to Ritt, how-
ever, "Regardless of seed, you still
have to play three days of good ten-
nis to win our conference champi-
onship."
But, whiat is more important is
that they are seeded in the top five.
The bottom six teams have to play an
extra match on Thursday before the
top seeds play on Friday.
Schedule
All tines EST
y8omQ gamnes m <CAPS
April 18 April 2 April 26
at Penn WISCONSIN NORTH-
State'WESTERN
10 a.m. 10 am 10 a.m.
April 30 May 1 May 2
at Big Ten at Big Ten atig Ten
Champion Champion Champion.
ships ships ships
ANl Day Asl Day All Day
Tech will challenge three more
charges, and wasn't sure about the
other two.
Because of the sanctions, football
will lose 14 scholarships in the next
two years, baseball will lose a total of 7
1/2 through 2002 and the men's basket-
ball team will shrink from 13 scholar-
ship players to II for the next three
seasons.
Men's track and golf and women's
basketball were hit with lighter schol-
arship sanctions. All six sports, along
with men's tennis and women's volley-
ball, also must forfeit every victory in
which an ineligible athlete participat-
ed.
Men's basketball previously forfeit-
ed all of its Big 12 victories in 1997
and declared itself ineligible for post-
season play.
The team also forfeited its two
NCAA tournament victories in 1996
and said it would repay the NCAA the
approximately $100,000 it earned.
Texas Tech lost $1.75 million in Big
12 bowl revenue last fall when the foot-
ball team removed itself from postsea-
son contention, forcing the athletic
department to slash its budget by 15
percent across the board this fiscal
year.
Ten ineligible football players com-
peted in Texas Tech's 55-41 victory
over Air Force in the 1995 Copper
Bowl, documents show. But, Burton
said the school's 1993 national champi-
onship in women's basketball won't be
affected.
Burton declined to speculate on what
other victories were endangered, but
conceded the number could be high.
In the six-inch-thick response docu-
ment, the university denied it failed to
properly monitor use of a Florida cor-
respondence course, that a former
regent gave improper legal counsel to
athletes and that a professor awarded
unearned credit to a football player.
Texas Tech admitted to all or parts of
charges involving academic miscon-
duct by an assistant football coach, ath-
letes' failure to pay off bail made by a
booster, improper transportation given
to athletes and other accusations.
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