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MEN’S TENNIS
Hoosiers primed for big weekend

It has been difficult for fans to gauge how good the IU men’s tennis team is this year.

The ITA voters are confused, too.

The Hoosiers, who are 3-0 at home but 0-3 on the road, jumped five spots in the ITA rankings to No. 43 this week despite dropping two matches last weekend.

They can justify that ranking on Saturday if they take care of business against two inferior opponents, No. 66 Illinois State and Morehead State.

But as IU coach Randy Bloemendaal warns, there is no easy match, even at home.

“Illinois State is going to be really tough,” he said. “They got a ranking, and it’s not easy for schools in the Missouri Valley to get a ranking because their schedules aren’t as tough. We are just going to have to go out there and do some of the dirty work and try to get our momentum back.”

Junior Lachlan Ferguson is going to be an important factor in determining if the Hoosiers can regain their momentum. Ferguson dealt with an injury earlier in the season and has slowly worked his way back to full strength. He played at No. 4 singles in the team’s last three matches, and Bloemendaal expects him to remain there for now.

Ferguson, however, is anxious to move back up.

“That’s up to coach, but I’m ready to go,” said Ferguson, who is the only IU player yet to lose a singles match. “I don’t want to spend the rest of the season at 4, that’s definitely not my goal. Whenever coach decides to give me that opportunity, I’ll take advantage of it for sure.”

— Justin Albers

WOMEN'S TENNIS
IU set for Northwestern and Notre Dame

Rarely are matchups with two of the top three teams in the country in the same weekend eagerly anticipated by a coach. But IU women’s tennis coach Lin Loring is an exception, as the Hoosiers will play No. 1 Northwestern and No. 3 Notre Dame.

“That’ll be fun in the sense that we’ll definitely be the big underdog in both matches,” Loring said. “They’ll be fun matches to play. I like being the underdog.”

The weekend slate will open when the No. 30 Hoosiers (10-2) travel to South Bend for a Friday match against Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish are 10-1 on the season, their only loss coming against No. 2 North Carolina.

Notre Dame boasts three ranked singles players — No. 14 Kristy Frilling, No. 90 Christine McGaffigan and No. 92 Shannon Mathews — as well as the No. 3 doubles pair of Frilling and Kali Kristik. IU, by comparison, has only freshman Leslie Hureau at No. 101 in singles and the No. 24 doubles team of senior Lindsey Stuckey and sophomore Evgeniya Vetresheva.

Two days later, the Hoosiers open Big Ten play as the hosts of No. 1 Northwestern, who also stands at 10-1 for the season, losing only to Notre Dame and having won against Tennessee and North Carolina.

The Wildcats also sport a roster loaded with ranked players, including No. 13 Maria Mosolova and No. 31 Samantha Murray at singles as well as three ranked doubles pairs: No. 16 Lauren Lui and Elena Chernyakova, No. 51 Brittany Wowchuk and Chernyakova and No. 59 Murray and Kate Turvy.

Loring said the team is prepared for the top competition after winning 10 of 12 nonconference matches despite having yet to field a fully healthy lineup.

“We could easily be 6-6 right now,” Loring said. “We’ve yet to have our lineup at full strength, so just to get to this point in the season without our lineup at full strength is pretty doggone good.”
— Max McCombs

TRACK AND FIELD
Hoosiers travel to South Bend for Invitational

The IU track and field team will try to finish strong as they complete their regular season this weekend at the Alex Wilson Invitational.

After arguably the most successful regular season of the coach Ron Helmer era, this will be the last chance for the Hoosiers to gain qualifying marks to compete in the NCAA Indoor Championships.

The team is coming off of a week in which several student-athletes received some of the Big Ten’s highest honors. Sophomore Derek Drouin received Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year, Andy Bayer was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year and senior Faith Sherrill earned Big Ten Field Athlete of the Championships.

This momentum will be taken into South Bend, where the Hoosiers anticipate big things from their distance medley relay teams.

“One of the goals for this weekend is to get our two DMR teams qualified,” Helmer said. “I think this is a place where this can happen, and we have the lineup that will allow that to happen.”

Junior Kind Butler is part of this DMR lineup and will run part of the team’s race this weekend.

“Since this is our last chance, there is going to be a lot of competition,” Butler said. “So I’m just going to be there to compete and give it everything I got.”

— Avi Zaleon

WATER POLO
Hoosiers return home for weekend matches

After a morning practice last week, IU water polo  coach Barry King said he was happy with how the team has been doing so far.

The No. 18 Hoosiers have won the last six of their 11 competitions in 2010, all of which were on the road. They hope they will continue their performance when they finally return home to play in the Elite Eight tournament.

“We are not just thinking about the winning streak,” King said. “We should just prepare for every game and play hard as we did on the road.”

The Hoosiers are looking forward to taking home advantage, King said. At IU Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center, they will play hosts to strong opponents, including five teams currently ranked in the Varsity Top-20 poll released by the Collegiate Water Polo Association.

“Playing at home is definitely what we desire,” King said. “We have found the problems we needed to fix by playing those games in Michigan and California, so I hope we can put what we have learned in to practice at hour home pool.”

King said earlier in the season that one of the key components of winning a game was handling the early trail and fight back, an area in which the Hoosiers still “need improving a lot."

The players could not agree more.

“During a game, especially on the road, falling behind early is a tough thing,” senior goalkeeper Katie Carson said. “We just need to play better defensively, and we also need better team communications.”

IU will battle Brown University on Saturday in the first round. And with a win, the Hoosiers will advance to play the winner of Michigan vs. Bucknell.

The consolations games will be on Sunday. IU needs to win the first two games in order to guarantee at least a fourth-place finish.

SOFTBALL
IU hits Golden State for 5-game stretch

The Hoosiers look to improve on their 5-6 record with a big five game weekend in California.

“I think its going to be challenging this weekend, which is good because the Big Ten season wont be easy,” IU freshman pitcher Jessica Dobson said.

IU faces some tough competition this weekend, including a game against No. 10 Stanford.

On Friday, the Hoosiers face Pacific, who is currently 4-6 and North Carolina, who went 47-13 last year and made it to the NCAA tournament.

“I think for us seeing better competition will be good for us to see how we can deal with such good teams,” freshman outfielder Samantha Heyman said.

IU will take on UC Davis (6-7) on Saturday and ends the day with Cal State Fullerton, who went 30-21 last year in the Big West Conference.

“We need to take care of those baby steps and things we’ve been working on to keep up with the competition this weekend,” IU coach Michelle Gardner said.

On Sunday, the Hoosiers face their toughest competition with Stanford (12-2).
Last year the Cardinal went 44-9 and made it into the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.

Senior outfielder Alissa Haber leads the team with a .489 batting average and is fifth in the Pac-10 conference with 22 hits.

“I think we have definitely been able work some things out so far, like our communication in the infield has gotten stronger,” Dobson said.

Sophomore infielder Samantha Berenter leads the Hoosiers with a .368 batting average and Dobson leads the team with a 3.00 ERA.

“I think we are getting better each week and defensively we are getting cleaner, which was seen last week,” Gardner said.

Five of the 23 athletes on the team are from California and their friends and family will be in attendance to support the team.

“I know I play better when friends and family are around me and when there is pressure on me to play well,” Heyman said.