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MEN'S TENNIS
IU’s home matches determine postseason fate

The fight for an NCAA Tournament berth is on.

The IU men’s tennis team will close the Big Ten regular season this weekend with home matches against Michigan State and No. 26 Michigan. The No. 39 Hoosiers might need at least one more win to secure a spot in the postseason tournament.

Last year, the Hoosiers finished 49th in the national rankings and failed to make the 64-team field.
IU coach Randy Bloemendaal said winning Big Ten home matches is critical in such a difficult conference.

“You should be able to hold on your home court,” Bloemendaal said. “We weren’t able to do that against Minnesota, and that was a difficult loss. This year has been tough on us because we only get four Big Ten matches at home and six on the road.  

“I think the biggest thing for us is we just have to get tougher. Every team in this conference is going to come after you, and you just have to be ready day-in and day-out.”

The Wolverines’ 7-1 conference record is tied for second-best in the Big Ten.  
Michigan State, on the other hand, has struggled mightily and is tied for ninth with a 1-7 record.

Junior Lachlan Ferguson, who redshirted as a freshman and will graduate in May, will be the only Hoosier honored on Sunday’s Senior Day.

Ferguson said closing out the regular season with two wins would provide good momentum for the postseason.

“That would be huge,” he said. “This is a great chance for us to get two wins in the same weekend. Michigan is a tough team, but I think at home we’ll have an advantage.”
— Justin Albers

WOMEN'S GOLF
IU swings into conference tournament

Sitting on the right side of the NCAA Tournament bubble is a good feeling for IU coach Clint Wallman and the women’s golf team.

Ranked No. 55 in the nation, the Hoosiers are currently eight spots ahead of the magic number of at-large bids, according to the Golfweek rankings.

Heading into this week’s Big Ten Championships in Madison, Wis., Wallman said he feels comfortable with his team’s chances of advancing to one of the three NCAA Regionals and is ready to set bigger goals.

“We have demonstrated the abilities to shoot low numbers, so it is not that far-fetched for us to put it together,” Wallman said. “We are not going up there to finish fifth. Every tournament we go to, we go to win, and that will be our focus.”

The 2010 Big Ten Championships will be played at University Ridge Golf Course, a course the Hoosiers are familiar with.

Seniors Laura Nochta and Kellye Belcher have played at University Ridge in tournaments each of the past three seasons, including capturing the Badger Invitational title during their freshman seasons.

“Our strength as a team is ball striking, and you have to have good control of your golf ball if you want to score well there,” Wallman said. “It is a very comfortable course for us because we hit it long as a team, and I think we are hitting it very well as a team.”

Along with having six players count towards the team total of four scores, the Big Ten Championships will also be the first 72-hole tournament the Hoosiers have played in all year.

“I think what the 72-hole format does is it separates the field, because you can have a one-hit wonder,” Wallman said. “I think it is good for us, because over the long haul we do better in longer tournaments.”

According to the Golfweek rankings, IU comes into the Big Ten Championships as the fifth-ranked team in the conference.

In the past three years, the Hoosiers have finished fifth, fourth and sixth at the Big Ten Championships. Despite the rankings, Wallman said he doesn’t see any reason why IU cannot be atop the leaderboard come Sunday’s final round.

“If you go by rankings, we are the fifth-best team in the conference,” Wallman said. “Do I think we are the fifth-best team? No. It is anyone’s ball game, and I think we are fully capable of playing well.”
— Kevin Bowen

WATER POLO
IU takes pool for championships

On Jan. 24 at Ann Arbor, Mich., the IU women’s water polo team beat Colorado State University 13-7 and had its first win of the 2010 season. After a three-month stretch, the Hoosiers are revisiting the Michigan pool for the third time this season.

The No. 15 Hoosiers (18-9) will compete in the Collegiate Water Polo Association Western Championship to bring its games to the bigger stage. Being the No. 2 seed in the Western Division, the team will play the Mercyhurst Lakers on Saturday morning, while the host team and top-seed Michigan Wolverines will meet the Gannon University Golden Knights.

The winners of these two games will automatically advance to the CWPA Eastern Championship and will battle for the Western Division Championship on Saturday.

The Hoosier team has never lost to either Lakers or Golden Knights in its history. In the previous meetings, IU beat both Gannon University and Mercyhurst on March 27 during the Fluid Five tournament at home.

However, IU coach Barry King said postseason play can be different.
“They know this is about winning championships,” he said. “This is where all the talk of goals and expectations start back at the beginning of the year. Winning the championship is the goal. Our expectation is that we’re competing and winning that championship.”

Last year, IU lost to Michigan in the Western Division championship game, 9-8.
King said the Hoosiers need to pay attention to power-play execution.

“The focus on the power play still needs to be there,” he said. “We need to score on our chances in the power play. We keep proving to ourselves that we know what we’re doing in the half-court offense to be able to draw them. If those are a third of our attempts on the cage, they need to be organized and efficient.”
— Kevin Wang

MEN'S GOLF
IU enters Boilermaker Invitational

After playing host to and finishing first and fourth in its last two tournaments, the IU men’s golf team will head to enemy territory this weekend at the Boilermaker Invitational in West Lafayette.

The Kampen Course at Purdue is considered one of the most difficult college golf courses in the nation, and it was the home of the 2008 NCAA Championships.
IU coach Mike Mayer sees similarities in Kampen and Crooked Stick Golf Club, where the Hoosiers played earlier in the week at the Crooked Stick Invitational.

“I think our schedule is pretty good coming in here, because we just played a Pete Dye design course in Crooked Stick, and I think the courses are pretty similar,” Mayer said.

The Boilermaker Invitational has a 12-team field, a majority of which are from the Big Ten.

This weekend’s tournament will also mark the final regular-season event for the Hoosiers before the Big Ten Championships begin on April 30.

The Hoosiers are coming off a fourth-place finish at the Crooked Stick Invitational, which finished Tuesday.

Despite the short turnaround in the schedule, Mayer believes his team will be ready to go come Saturday.

“We played at home for the adidas Hoosier Invitational and then had a week off,” Mayer said. “We knew this stretch was coming, and we prepared for it well. I think it may be a good thing that we will be going right back out.”

With only two tournaments left in the season before NCAA Regional bids are awarded, Mayer said he believes he has his best lineup with him this weekend.

“We feel that this is our strongest lineup right now,” Mayer said. “We want to peak at the right time, and I think we are on schedule to do that.”
— Kevin Bowen

WOMEN'S TENNIS
IU heads to Michigan for conference duels

Locked in a three-way tie with Purdue and Ohio State for fifth, the IU women’s tennis team enters its final weekend of the regular season looking to stay in contention for a bye in the upcoming Big Ten tournament.

“We want to stay, at least, in that three-way tie for fifth,” IU coach Lin Loring said. “To do that, we probably need to at least split the matches this weekend. We’re all playing a top team, and we’re all playing a team below us. So if there aren’t any big upsets, then there still could be three teams tied at the end of this weekend.”

In the event of a tie, a tiebreaker procedure will be used to determine which of the three teams will be seeded fifth, and thus receive a bye, in the conference tournament.

IU will open the weekend at Michigan State on Saturday. The Hoosiers will be favored against the Spartans, who are just 1-7 in conference play. The following day, however, brings a match with Michigan, currently the only undefeated team in conference play. The Wolverines are 17-3 overall and ranked No. 4 in the country in the latest Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings.
Injuries continue to haunt the Hoosiers. Lineups in the matches this weekend will likely reflect that.

“We could have some people who can’t play both days,” Loring said. “We’ll know more in a day or so, but doubles could be different. We still have some question marks and some little nagging injuries. Other than that, I think we’re ready to go.”
— Max McCombs