Men's Southland Conference Championship Start Today

SAN ANTONIO, Texas - The 2001 Southland Conference Men's and Women's Tennis Championships begin this morning at 8 a.m. on the campus of the University of Texas at San Antonio.  The opening match will start on the men's side with No. 2-seed Texas-Arlington facing No. 7-seed Centenary.

The women's bracket will begin at 9:30 a.m. with No. 4-seed Southeastern Louisiana taking on No. 5-seed McNeese State.

At stake is an automatic bid to the NCAA Tennis Championship.  This is a first for the Southland men.  By adding two affiliate members - Centenary College and Texas-Pan American - the Southland Conference now competes with seven men's teams, one more than the minimum six required to receive an automatic bid to the NCAAs.

Texas-Arlington, which has the SLC player of the year Andy Leber in the No. 1 singles and doubles position, is a perennial power in the league.  The Mavericks were the three-time regular-season and tournament champions before Texas-San Antonio won its first-ever regular-season title this year.  The Roadrunners, led by coach of the year Oliver Trittenwein, went undefeated in conference play, defeating UTA 4-3 on March 13.  These two most likely will meet in the final Sunday.

Women's tennis has been dominated by UTA the past three years.  The Mavs have won 30 consecutive regular-season SLC matches.  The last time they lost a regular-season match was April 10, 1998, when UTSA defeated them 7-2.  That was the last regular-season match of the season.  The UTA women have swept through the last three years without a loss, posting 10-0 records each time.

As for postseason, UTA has not also lost a Southland Conference tournament match since the league switched to a team-playoff format in 1999 (2-0 in each of the last two years).  So the Mavericks have won a total of 34 straight matches in Southland Conference competition heading into this weekend's tournament.

UTA will most likely be challenged by UTSA, whose only loss came at Arlington 6-1 on March 25.  Both of these teams are nationally ranked by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).  UTA is No. 68 and UTSA is No. 69.

Southland Conference Men's Tennis Championship
Friday, April 20
No. 2 Texas-Arlington (5-1) vs. No. 7 Centenary (0-6), 8 a.m.
No. 3 Southeastern Louisiana (4-2) vs. No. 6 Lamar (1-5), 11:30 a.m.
No. 4 Texas-Pan American (3-3) vs. No. 5 Louisiana-Monroe (2-4), 3 p.m.

Saturday, April 21
Winner UTA-CC vs. Winner SLU-LU, 11 a.m.
No. 1 Texas-San Antonio (6-0) vs. Winner UTPA-ULM, 3:30 p.m.

Sunday, April 22
Championship, 10 a.m.

Southland Conference Women's Championship
Friday, April 20
No. 4 Southeastern Louisiana (7-3) vs. No. 5 McNeese State (6-4), 9:30 a.m.
No. 3 Louisiana-Monroe (8-2) vs. No. 6 Stephen F. Austin (5-5), 1 p.m.

Saturday, April 21
No. 1 Texas-Arlington (10-0) vs. Winner SLU-McN, 9 a.m.
No. 2 Texas-San Antonio (9-1) vs. Winner ULM-SFA, 1 p.m.

Sunday, April 22
Championship, 1 p.m.