Feb. 13, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 58 Penn State men's tennis team welcomes the No. 33 VCU Rams this weekend. The teams will play Sunday at approximately 2 p.m. in the Indoor Tennis Center. The Penn State women's tennis team plays Penn at 10 a.m. and the men's match will begin shortly after that.
The Nittany Lions improved to 8-0 last weekend as they swept their Saturday and Sunday doubleheaders. Penn State knocked off UMBC, 7-0, and Bucknell, 7-0, on Saturday. They followed that up with a 6-1 win against Binghamton and a 7-0 win against Lehigh on Sunday.
With the wins, Penn State is off to their best start since 1992, when the team started 9-0.
The Nittany Lions got two players into the ITA Singles Poll this week. Leo Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) is ranked 54th due to a 7-0 start to the spring, including a win over then-No. 26 Amerigo Contini of Virginia Tech.
Teammate Russell Bader (Austin, Texas) checks in at 119 with an 8-0 mark in dual matches. Bader also has a win over a ranked opponent this year, topping Virginia Tech's No. 60 Andreas Bjerrehus.
Bader looks to continue his climb up the Penn State record books. Following a 4-0 weekend, Bader now has 82 career wins, one behind moving into a three-way tie for seventh place all-time at Penn State with Marc Dorfman(1995-00) and Colin Smeeton(1994-98). Bader also picked up career doubles win number 68 and is in a four-way tie for fifth in school history.
Freshman Marc Collado Castells (Barcelona, Spain) improved to 7-0 this past weekend and is tied with Bader for the team lead in wins with 15. Sophomore Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.) is 5-0 this spring.
Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) has six wins this spring, while Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada) has five wins.
Bader and Stakhovsky have paired up to go 5-2 in the top doubles spot. David Kohan (Sydney, Australia) and Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.) are 5-0 this spring.
The Rams enter this weekend with a mark of 7-3. They face No. 56 Middle Tennessee State on Friday before traveling to State College.
VCU also has two players represented in the ITA Poll. Senior Alejandro Argente is ranked 66th and begins the weekend with a 7-0 record. Fellow senior Alexis Heugas is rated as the 73rd-best player. Heugas is 4-1 this spring.
Live stats for the match are available at http://www.gopsusports.com/livestats/c-tennis/xlive.htm.
Please check back to GoPSUSports.com throughout the weekend for updates. Fans can also follow updates on our Facebook, Penn State Men's Tennis, and Twitter, @pennstateMTEN, pages.