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WOMEN'S TENNIS
Hoosiers prepared for Golden Eagles, Bearcats

With defending national champion Duke on the horizon, it could be tempting for the IU women’s tennis team to look past this weekend’s competition.  

But for IU coach Lin Lorin, matchups against Marquette and Cincinnati are nothing to overlook.

“We haven’t really blown anybody away,” Loring said. “We’ve played two good teams in Western Michigan and Miami and barely got by those two. I wish I could say it was a tune-up, but we’re going to have to play well to win on Saturday.”

As they have the past two weekends, the Hoosiers will play two matches in one day, beginning with a Marquette squad (3-0) off with a promising start to its season.

“I think it’s probably the best team Marquette’s had in a while,” Loring said. “I expect this to be a very good match. I think Marquette is defiantly going to be the tougher of the two opponents.”

The match against Marquette will begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, followed by a contest with Cincinnati at 2 p.m.

“They’re a relatively new up-and-coming program,” Loring said of the Bearcats. “I think we’ll match up very well against them as long as we’re not overly tired from the morning. They’re playing a 6 p.m. Friday night match at home, so they’ll be tired too.”

– Max McCombs

MEN'S AND WOMEN'S SWIMMING
IU looking to continue fast start against Louisville

In their final non-conference dual meet of the season, the No. 25 IU men’s swimming and diving team will take on No. 16 Louisville in Kentucky.

The men have spent a majority of the season fighting back from injuries, so over the past few weeks the Hoosiers have been stressing fundamentals in practice.

The team was having trouble getting out ahead in races, but IU coach Ray Looze hopes the team will be able to improve.

“We need some of our guys that are capable of winning races to step up and win,” he said.

With the end of the season approaching, the men said they understand the need to be more aggressive.  

Earlier this year, Looze said his team must step up and become leaders again if it hopes to gain some event wins against Louisville.

The most important thing will be for IU to lead by example and get its hands on the wall first, Looze said.

The coach said there are several positives that can come from this meet against the Cardinals.

“If we do the best we are capable of doing, that will be a huge lift,” he said.

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The No. 14 women’s swimming and diving team will compete in its final dual meet of the season at No. 13 Louisville.

This meet will be the team’s last competition before trying to defend its Big Ten title on Feb. 17 in West Lafayette, Ind.

Sophomore Margaux Farrell will look to continue her strong season after being named Big Ten Swimmer of the Week for the first time in her career.

Looze knows this weekend’s meet will be tough for the Hoosiers but believes it will give them a good opportunity in preparation for NCAA and Big Ten Championships.

“It’s important to be put into pressure situations,” he said. “We are excited to test ourselves against a great team.”

Looze indicated IU has changed the lineup to make the team stronger and to hopefully have a bigger impact on the final score.

“The team that does that to the best degree will come out on top,” Looze said.

- Caitlin Ursini

TRACK AND FIELD

Hoosier runners seek to break 4-minute mile

An IU track athlete has never run the mile in under four minutes inside Gladstein Fieldhouse.

At the Indiana Relays on Friday, freshman Andy Bayer and junior De’Sean Turner will have the opportunity to be the first to do so against some of the top runners in the country.

Bayer and Turner have posted times this season which are on pace to rival IU school records in the mile. Their marks this season, combined with the quality of their competition, can make their race, scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m., one of the most exciting races of the two-day event.

“One of the main goals for myself is to break four minutes,” Turner said. “But if that doesn’t happen, we’ve been putting up good times and that’s just something we have to keep doing.”

Bayer was also chosen as the Big Ten’s Track Athlete of the Week for his performance at the Gladstein Invitational.

The Hoosiers were also recognized as a top team this week when the national rankings were revealed. The men’s team was ranked No. 16 in the nation, an improvement of 22 spots from their preseason ranking, and the women’s team moved up 17 spots to No. 28.

“The national ranking doesn’t really change my mindset,” said junior runner Lindsey Hartman. “I go into every race running my hardest and trying to complete Coach Helmer’s gameplan.”

The Indiana Relays will include 695 athletes from 22 schools and five club/professional organizations. Events are set to begin at 3 p.m. Friday and will conclude at 4:35 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28.

-Avi Zaleon

MEN'S TENNIS

Hoosiers begin team season in Mississippi

Everything leads up to this.

The IU men’s tennis team has put in long hours on the court for the last eight months in preparation for the team season, which begins tomorrow in Oxford, Miss.

The Hoosiers, who enter the season ranked No. 50 in the nation, advanced to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals last year and are ready to build on that success in 2010.

They will open the season against Columbia before playing ranked Southeastern Conference foes No. 10 Ole Miss and No. 54 Arkansas on Sunday.

“The competition level is very high, but that is what we expect. That is why we’ve been training at that level during these last two tournaments,” IU coach Randy Bloemendaal said. “Our opponents will have a little bit more of a sense of urgency, but other than that I think the level is going to be the same. We’re expecting a battle from every team
we face.”

Bloemendaal will go with a lineup consisting of both experienced and inexperienced players.

IU might not be the oldest team, and it might not have a player ranked at the top, but Bloemendaal believes his Hoosiers can compete with any school in the country.

“I feel like we’ve prepared as well as we can prepare for a season,” he said. “I’m really excited, and I feel like we’re on track to start accomplishing a lot of the goals that we set at the beginning of the year.”

– Justin Albers

WOMEN'S GOLF
Women return to the course

After a three-month break from the links, the IU women’s golf team will return to action Sunday at the Westlake Cup in Phoenix, Ariz.

The Hoosiers will take on Wisconsin in a dual match to begin its 2010 spring season.

IU coach Clint Wallman will bring six players with him this weekend.

The scoring format at the Westlake Cup is vastly different than the tournaments the Hoosiers played in this fall. A Nassau scoring format will be used, which means each
team will play all six players in six separate head-to-head matches.

The two teams will play six individual match-play matches with one point being awarded to the winning player on the front nine, one to the winning player on the back nine and one for the total score.

Despite the frigid temperatures in the Midwest, the Hoosiers have been practicing indoors since returning from winter break.

“We have been spending a lot of time addressing the specific areas the players needed to work on with short game and swing stuff,” Wallman said.

The time away from the course has also given the girls a nice break from the mental grind, Wallman said.

The Hoosiers will use the Westlake Cup as a warm-up before the Lady Puerto Rico Classic played Feb. 7 to 9.

– Kevin Bowen

WRESTLING
IU set to face two ranked opponents

This weekend, the No. 14 IU wrestling team will get two chances to defend its home turf, starting with a match against No. 24 Illinois at University Gym on Friday.
The matchup compares to the Big Ten opener at Wisconsin. The Illini boast five ranked wrestlers, all at weight classes where the Hoosiers are unranked.

John Dergo leads the Illini, ranked No. 2 at 184 lbs. Dergo is coming in with an 11-match win streak and a Midlands title under his belt.

Challenging Dergo will be IU junior Eric Cameron, who has shown promise this year with an 18-9 overall record, including a seventh-place finish at the Southern Scuffle.

But Cameron has yet to defeat a ranked opponent this season. A win over Dergo would help the Hoosiers’ chance at a victory.

Getting upset wins is something IU coach Duane Goldman has repeatedly stressed to his team throughout the week.

“Even though we competed well against Northwestern, we still didn’t win any matches that we weren’t suppose to,” Goldman said.
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The Hoosiers will take on No. 4 Ohio State on Saturday at University Gym.

The Buckeyes come into the match with depth across the board, totaling six ranked wrestlers. Of those six wrestlers, four are ranked in the top 10 in their respective weight classes.

The Hoosiers will be in the position of underdog for the first time this season in a dual.

Without a dual against Iowa this year, Ohio State is the highest ranked opponent that will come into University Gym.

IU junior Paul Young once again finds himself in the top matchup of the day at 165 lbs.

The No. 13 ranked Young will take on Ohio State’s Colt Sponseller, who is ranked No. 7 at 165 lbs.

Young is coming off a tight match between Wisconsin’s No. 1 Andrew Howe, where he fell 6-4. The aggressive Young leads the Hoosiers with 11 pins.

– Connor O-Gara