CSUN Tennis Begins Big West Championships vs. Cal State Fullerton

Thursday, April 28

Indian Wells, Calif.

8:00 a.m.

California State University at Northridge

Cal State Fullerton

CSUN Tennis Begins Big West Championships vs. Cal State Fullerton

4/26/2016 8:33:00 AM | Women's Tennis

Matadors Enter Indian Wells as the Sixth Seed

By: by Geoffrey Herberg

Complete Tournament Bracket

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NORTHRIDGE, Calif. --- The CSUN women's tennis team will travel to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, Calif. for the 2016 Big West Championships from April 27-30. The Matadors, who finished the regular season 9-12 overall and 3-5 in the Big West Conference, will be looking for their first-ever Big West title and automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament as the sixth seed in the event.

The Matadors enter the weekend having closed the season with four-straight league matches. Although they went 1-3, they gained some valuable experience as the Matadors look to face some of those teams again.

"We feel like we are playing some of our best tennis right now and we have a great opportunity to play Fullerton again," CSUN Head Coach Gary Victor said. "We have the ability to compete with them and we had some match points at doubles we didn't convert in our earlier meeting. If we can convert on those opportunities, like we did at UC Davis, that will be key for us."

Cal State Fullerton was not one of those final four opponents, but CSUN will also be looking for revenge when it meets up with the Titans Thursday morning. The Titans took a 5-2 decision over CSUN in Orange County on Mar. 26. Kristen Poei and Kiryang Kim recorded singles victories in the loss, but CSUN was edged 7-5 in a pair of doubles contests to start the day. The Titans then took four singles matches in straight sets to complete the win.

Juniors Mickey Hsu and Poei headline CSUN's doubles line-up, having amassed an 11-8 overall record and 5-2 mark in Big West action. They are 8-2 over their last 10 matches and earned an impressive victory over a then 16th-ranked doubles tandem from UC Santa Barbara. In fact, the duo enters the weekend with a career mark of 44-15 (.746) in their two-plus years as a doubles team.

"They lost some very close matches earlier in the season, including against Cal State Fullerton and a top-ranked team from Fresno State. They have played very well lately, once they got those past those two losses." Victor said. "Mickey just needs to realize how good and how hard she works and as she does her results will show. Kristen has an awesome game style and wins in a variety of ways. She has come up big for us in the past so I feel like we have a great opportunity to compete with a talented Cal State Fullerton team."

Hsu won two Big West Tennis Athlete of the Week awards over the season, earning her most recent award on Mar. 24 after an unblemished record in doubles and singles play in victories over Connecticut and Cal Poly. She also received the honors in early February after helping lead CSUN to a 4-3 victory over LMU. She finished the regular season with a 10-10 overall record and 3-5 league record and played in all but one match at the No. 1 draw.

Poei went 8-9 overall and 4-4 against league opponents in singles play this season, playing the majority of her time in the No. 3 or No. 4 draws. Kim is one of the team's hottest players, having gone 7-3 in her last 10 singles matches to improve her season record to 8-10 and 4-4 against Big West opposition.

Freshman Skyla Alcon and junior Mari Taslagyan both matched Hsu with 10 singles wins during the regular season. Alcon, was especially impressive in her work at the fourth draw, going 6-2 on the season. Taslagyan played predominantly in the No. 5 and No. 6 draws and was the only Matador to earn a point in a 4-1 loss at UCLA in February.

"I feel like Mari has the capacity to play great tennis in big moments and we are excited to see how she performs, Victor added. "Ki (Kiryang Kim) has been playing better and worked her way through some things to be playing well and with lots of confidence. Skyla has had a tremendous freshman year and has the maturity in competition to rise to the occasion."

Alcon and Vivian Lin went 10-9 in doubles play, including a 4-3 mark in league action, mostly at the No. 2 draw. In the third draw, Taslagyan and Kim finished the regular season with a 9-5 mark predominantly in the third draw. However, Kim and Taslagyan did not play against Cal State Fullerton earlier this season as Taslagyan teamed with redshirt sophomore Scout Shutter for a 6-2 victory in the third draw.

Cal State Fullerton finished 17-5 overall in the regular season and 6-2 in the Big West Conference, although the Titans enter the tournament coming off consecutive losses to UC Santa Barbara and Long Beach State. Alexis Valenzuela went 16-4 overall on the year all at the No. 1 singles spot.

The winner of the CSUN-Cal State Fullerton match will face the winner of No. 2 Long Beach State and No. 7 UC Davis on Friday, April 29 at approximately 9 a.m. The Big West Championship is set for Saturday, April 30 at 9 a.m.