11/12/01
MEN'S TENNIS
FARMERS BRANCH, Texas ­ Mississippi State's Romain Ambert came up one match shy of taking the consolation singles crown at the Omni Hotel's National Indoor Championships Sunday. The tournament, which was the second major college event of the year, was played at the Brookhaven Country Club just outside Dallas.

Ranked 17th nationally, Ambert fell 6-2, 6-1 to Tennessee's 16th-ranked Mario Toledo in the finals Sunday morning. The match marked the conclusion to a solid fall for Ambert, who ended the semester 15-5 overall in singles, including the title of the Southern Collegiate Championships to open the year.

Sunday's match also signified the final competition for the MSU men's tennis team this fall. State will open spring action Jan. 17-20, 2002, at the Southeastern Conference Indoor Championships in Lexington, Ky. The Bulldogs begin their 2002 dual match season Jan. 24, hosting Southern Miss at MSU's A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre.

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Ueda and Switala were leading Mississippi's Florencia Basile and Sabrina Peppl 4-1 before the Lady Rebels' duo retired to give the MSU team the win in the finals of the B Draw's Southwest bracket.

Switala was unable to capture her second win of the day at the Lincoln Tennis Center, however, as she dropped the Southwest bracket final of B Draw play to Auburn's Sarah Suitor 6-0, 6-2.

In other action for MSU Sunday, senior Carole Soubis dropped a 6-4, 6-3 decision to Auburn's Carolina Maurer in the A Draw's Southeast bracket, and junior Elaine Fagan fell in her B Draw match against South Carolina's Catherine Brown 6-0, 6-1.

The duo closed the fall campaign when they defaulted their match with Tennessee's Brook Cordell and Kim Gates in the finals of the A Draw's South bracket.

Mississippi State opens a challenging spring slate January 18, hosting Centenary in a match scheduled for a 2 p.m. start at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre. Admission to all MSU home matches is free.

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State claimed the first two games 30-26 and 35-33, but UM returned from the break to tie the match with a pair of hard-fought 30-28 wins and then prevailed 21-19. The Bulldogs finished the year with a split of their two-game set with the Rebels after topping UM 3-1 in Starkville.

"I'm proud of the way our team competed today," said Bulldog coach Brenda Bowlin. "It was an exciting match the both teams wanted to win. We certainly had our chances to win it, but you have the give Ole Miss credit for battling back and keeping the match going."

State trailed throughout the third game, battling back to tie the score at 23-23 and taking a 28-26. But UM scored the game's final four points to keep the match alive. State overcame a pair of eight-point Rebel leads in game four, again catching UM at 23-23 and again succumbing to a late-game UM surge.

The tie-breaking fifth game featured four Bulldog serves as game and match point, with a pair of costly MSU service errors extending the game.

"That was a remarkable performance by Tanika," said Bowlin. "She took 80 swings today and came up just short of setting the school record for kills."

Tanika Taylor enjoyed a career-best outing for the Bulldogs, piling up 31 kills, one shy of the school record 32 kills set in 1997 by Christine Owen. The Bulldogs registered a season-high 94 kills, 15 more than the Rebels. Misty Hubenthal had a season-high 21 kills while sophomores Jennifer Rousey and Hilary Chambers had 15 kills each. Rousey had a career-high and team season-high nine blocks while Chambers' kill production was a career-best.

Defensively, Taylor registered a team-high 18 digs for her second double-double of the year. Hubenthal also reached double-double status with 11 digs. Senior Katie Carraro added 16 digs while Dawn Steinhauser and Jennifer Hadden had 14 each. Carraro nipped Steinhauser for the team lead in digs this season, 201 to 200.

Five Rebels reached double figures in kills, with Elena Garcia leading the way with 18. Abby Hollander was next with 17 kills and enjoyed a productive afternoon at the net with eight blocks, including four solos.

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11/09/01
MEN'S TENNIS
FARMERS BRANCH, Texas ­ Mississippi State tennis standout Romain Ambert had a rough opening round at the Omni Hotel's National Indoor Championships Thursday, as the sophomore Bulldog fell in his first-round match. The tournament, which is the second major college event of the year, is being played at the Brookhaven Country Club just outside Dallas.

Ranked 17th nationally and seeded eighth in the event, Ambert dropped a 6-0, 7-6(1) decision to Ohio Statešs Phil Metz, ranked 12th. Ambert will now play in the consolation draw, which will begin Friday.

In other action this weekend, Bulldog's Rene-Charles Combette and Matt Armstrong will begin competition in the Ole Miss Fall Classic in Oxford Friday. Both players will play one single's match Friday afternoon followed by a double's match together following single's. Play in that tournament will run through Sunday.

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The loss snapped a two-game unbeaten streak by the Bulldogs in the series with Mississippi and moved the Rebels ahead in the series, 4-3-1. With the loss, the Bulldogs end their season with a 13-8 record.

"We gave this game away tonight," said Mississippi State head coach Neil McGuire. "We failed to give Ole Miss the respect that they deserved and, as a result, they took advantage of our complacency."

Midway through the second stanza, having already created a number of scoring chances for herself throughout the game, Mississippi forward Kristin Chapman found herself one on one with State goalkeeper Krystal Werges early in the second half. She used green pastures to dribble ahead and find a good angle, but failed to pull her team even with the Bulldogs after her shot sailed well right of the MSU nets at the 61:19 point.

Tiffany Weiss got the Rebels off the mark in the 67th tick (66:22) of the game when she took a through ball from Chapman and hit a pinball shot off Werges into the nets. Weiss gave her team a one-goal lead just more than two minutes later (68:16) when her rifle shot found its way through Werges' outstretched ands near the far post.

After a handful of Mississippi State shots were easily scraped up by Rebel goalkeeper Melinda Smith, Mississippi forward Kristin Chapman nearly turned the momentum into an early lead. Chapman found space in front of a handful of Bulldog defenders, but her shot grazed the end line and hit the inside of the far post before being cleared by State defender Amber Meesey at the 15:38 mark. Van Zandt turned MSU's counteroffensive into a lead nearly eight minutes later when she used an assist from Itta Bena native Mary Fisher Patterson and found the back of the Rebel nets in the 24th minute (23:16).

Both teams negated each other's offensive opportunities down the stretch of the first period and Mississippi State took a 1-0 lead, as well as a 13-10 shot advantage, into the half.

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Junior Misty Hubenthal led the Bulldogs with 12 kills, but it took a fourth game surge by sophomore Hilary Chambers to pull out MSU's second consecutive SEC win. Chambers registered five of her nine kills and three of her five blocks in the final game. The Bulldogs, leading 2-1 in the match, trailed throughout the fourth period before catching the Rebels at 24-24 on a kill by Jennifer Rousey. Misty Hubenthal gave State a 28-27 advantage and the Dogs earned their final two points on a block by Chambers and a UM hitting error. Chambers finished with a .318 hitting percentage while Rousey totaled 11 kills.

"This was a crazy match," said Bulldog coach Brenda Bowlin. "We took it to them in the first game, they took it to us in the second game, and then we battled it out the rest of the way. Misty, Hilary and Jenn had outstanding games for us, and I was especially pleased to see our seniors step up the way they did tonight."

Senior setter Dawn Steinhauser registered her first career double-double with a career-high 10 kills and 15 digs. Senior middle Michele Gordon added 11 digs and senior defensive specialist Katie Carraro added nine digs.

The teams swapped blowouts in the first two games, with the Bulldogs hitting at a .235 clip and racing home with an impressive 30-15 win. UM topped it and evened the match with a 30-14 win, with the Bulldogs managing but six kills while committing 14 hitting errors.

State did another about-face in the third game, hitting at a .385 with but two errors en route to a 30-21 win in game three.

Elena Garcia and Jaime Burns had 12 kills each and Burns added a match-high 17 digs to pace Mississippi.

The Bulldogs and the Rebels conclude their two-match series and their respective season's Sunday in Oxford with a 2 p.m. match at the Gillom Sports Center.

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11/03/01
MEN'S TENNIS
ATHENS, Ga. - Members of Mississippi State's men's tennis team opened play Friday at the Bulldog Scramble, with MSU facing players from Florida in both singles and doubles Friday morning before taking on players from Baylor in doubles in the afternoon. The tournament is structured similar to a normal dual match, but no team score is kept and players are flighted according to their respective strengths.

Doubles play was not kind to State against Florida, as MSU dropped all three contests staged. MSU's 39th-ranked pair of Romain Ambert and Rene-Charles Combette was upset by Ross Greenstein and Eleazar Magallan 8-5. Matt Armstrong teamed with Luiz Carvalho, but fell 8-3 to UF's tandem of Chris McDonald and Olivier Levant 8-3. State's duo of Max Fomine and David Ruiz was an 8-2 victim of Matt Behrmann and Ryan Sherry.

In singles against the Gators, State went 3-4, but one Bulldog was forced to retire in one match and another dropped a three-set affair. Winners for State were Combette, Ruiz and Fomine.

With his 6-3, 7-6 victory over Gator Troy Hahn, the 33rd-ranked Combette broke a 10-match losing skid that dated back to last spring. Combette has been recovering from a stomach muscle injury he sustained early in the 2001 dual match season and, as a result, has been able to play only two matches thus far this year.

Ruiz notched a 7-5, 6-1 triumph against UF's Ross Greenstein. Down a set, Fomine came back to down McDonald 1-6, 6-1, 7-6.

Ambert, ranked 17th nationally, retired against Magallan. Down 6-3, 2-1, Ambert felt pain in the ankle which he broke last spring. Carvalho and Armstrong both lost close contests for the Bulldogs. Carvalho fell 7-6, 6-4 to Behrmann, while Armstrong was a 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 victim of Sherry.

In doubles play against squad members from Baylor in the afternoon, MSU managed one victory in three total matches, as Ambert and Combette teamed to down the Bear pair of Nathan McGregor and Zoltan Papp 8-6.

MSU continues action in the three-day event Saturday. State's contingent will take on players from Georgia and Kentucky Saturday morning in singles and doubles, and then meet Baylor for singles action in the afternoon. The Bulldogs will conclude action Sunday morning with singles and doubles matches against Miami.

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The Bulldogs, who had fought adversity all season, emerged from the crowd with a crown atop their heads. For the first time in school history, the Bulldogs staked their claim of the SEC West title.

Jessi Moore's shot with just 13 ticks remaining in sudden death overtime skirted past Mississippi senior goalkeeper Melinda Smith as the Mississippi State soccer team (12-7, 5-4 SEC) moved past Mississippi (9-9-1, 4-5 SEC), 2-1, Friday evening in Oxford.

"Tonight's victory is a momentous win for our soccer program," said Mississippi State head coach Neil McGuire. "Our players have believed in themselves and one another since the first day of preseason and set the goal of maximizing their potential. Tonight, they came one step closer to achieving that and deserve this success."

The Bulldogs outshot the Rebels 6-1 in the final overtime period, including three in the first four minutes of the period that were easily collected by Smith. However, with just 13 ticks remaining, Amy Van Zandt found Moore wide open in front of the Rebels nets and Moore, after carefully surveying the space, ended the game with the Golden Goal.

Faced with a 1-0 deficit at the break, Mississippi knotted the score back up at one apiece 17 minutes into the second period when Anna Sanders found open space in front of the Mississippi State nets and fired a shot past Bulldog netminder Krystal Werges in the 63rd minute (62:14). The teams traded shots for much of the remainder of the stanza, with both stifling several offensive chances by the other.

Van Zandt got Mississippi State off the mark a little less than 10 minutes into the game when she took a brilliant service from Kristin Peterson and finished with a header from two yards away for a 1-0 State lead in the 10th tick (9:05). The Bulldogs and Rebels traded offensive blows for the next 28 minutes of play before Mississippi State took advantage of a defensive breakdown by the hosts and nearly put a score in. Moore juked a couple of Rebel defender in the box, but got tangled up with another before falling five yards short of the endline.

The Bulldogs took the 1-0 lead into the break despite a 6-3 shot deficit. No corner kicks were called in the first half of play.

Mississippi State will return to action on Sunday when the Bulldogs close out their regular season at home against Memphis. Game time is set for 1 p.m. at the Mississippi State Soccer Field. State's lone senior, Arizona native Stacey Smith, will be honored in a pregame ceremony commemorating Senior Day. Admission to all 2001 Mississippi State home soccer games is free of charge.

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Alabama (18-6, 8-4 SEC) rallied past the Bulldogs to take the opening game 30-26 and then completed the sweep with 30-22 and 30-23 decisions. Mississippi State (6-16, 1-11 SEC), hurt by 26 hitting errors and another 14 service errors, dropped its 11th straight match and fell from contention for a berth in this year's league tournament in Knoxville, Tenn.

The Bulldogs got off to a promising start, racing to a 7-2 advantage in the opening game before the Tide pulled even at 20-20. A kill by Misty Hubenthal, her fifth of the game, knotted the score at 25-25, but Alabama, hitting a crisp .324, reeled off five of the next six points to take the opener 30-26.

Alabama maintained the upper hand in the next two games, though the Bulldogs pulled to within two points in the late stages of both the second and third periods. State trimmed the Alabama lead to two points at 23-21 and 24-22 before the Tide scored tallied the next six points to win 30-22. State erased a six-point deficit and trailed 22-20 in the third game before four straight Bulldog hitting errors lifted the Tide to a match-clinching 30-23 win.

Alabama's Erin Heffner tallied 10 kills on a .450 hitting night and made it a double-double with a match-high 13 digs.

Hubenthal paced the Bulldogs for the 15th time in 22 matches, registering a match-leading 12 kills. She also paced MSU with seven digs. Sophomore Jennifer Rousey had eight kills and a match-leading four blocks while sophomore Hilary Chambers came off the bench to chip in seven kills.

The Bulldogs continue their current six-match home schedule-ending homestand Sunday at 2 p.m. playing host to Auburn (1-20, 0-12), which dropped a 3-2 decision Friday night at Mississippi.

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