Hey there tennis fans!

            We are just a week away from Spring Break. We can do it! It's hard to believe that we are nearly halfway done with the semester. It has been midterm season here on campus which has given students the excuse to walk around like zombies from class to class. When it's time for tennis, however, we have to block out that stress that is hitting us like a ton of bricks. At times, it is super difficult, but with such a supporting squad that we surround ourselves with, I think we do a great job of keeping our minds off of the cruel papers and evil exams with our jokes, oh and of course Munchie, our pet mascot.

            Exercise in general is such an amazing stress reliever especially in times like these, and we are so lucky that tennis is a part of our everyday lives. It feels so good to get through a tough academic day and escape to the courts where we can just forget about our studies for a while to grind out our strokes. Our daily dose of tennis helps us carry on the rest of our day refreshed and of course, fit. We try to maximize every minute that we're on the court because we know our homework will come soon enough. It's part of the trade-off of being a student athlete. We get to play the sport but we gotta put in our studies too.

A lot of my friends who are not on athletic teams at LMU envy that we are guaranteed at least two hours of physical activity a day. They wish they can make trips to the gym everyday, but it's difficult to fit it in their schedules sometimes because they are involved with a number of things. I admire that my fellow students keep themselves busy and are so engaged with the LMU community and all the opportunities that it has to offer.   

            We were on the road this past weekend against SDSU. Our No. 2 player, Tory and No. 4 player, Miya were overcoming injuries this past week so they weren't able to compete in our match so we made a few adjustments in our line-up. Everyone who was playing came out ready to compete and we faced some tough battles. Clau and April had an amazing 8-4 victory at No. 1 doubles. Their intensity was high throughout the whole match; it was so great to watch their chemistry work so well together. Kristine was happy with her win at No. 4. singles. She claims, "I stuck with my patters and didn't get impatient." April almost walked away with a win at the 1 spot and had unbelievable points while keeping that 'aggressive April mantra.'

In our team meeting following the match, Coach Jamie advised us the importance of discipline and that we need to implement it a little more not just for tennis, but it's all the factors that contribute to our performance on the court such as getting our proper warm up series in (band work, stretching, dynamic warm up) and drinking the appropriate amount of fluids and staying fueled so we never lose our energy on the court. Then we have to make sure we are drinking the U-Can shake Jamie wants us to take, get ice wrapped if necessary and then get our foam roll on to flush out those tight muscles. There is so much that we have to incorporate besides playing a match, but I have learned how crucial it is to our actual performance on the court. All of these factors are supposed to prevent us from fatigue during our demanding in-season schedule.

This Thursday, we play Nevada-Reno at home and we would love to see you out there on the courts at 1:30!

Until next time!

Logan

Eager and ready to play the lions softball team headed to Cathedral City to face some great competition last Thursday. Our first game against Florida started off with a lot of energy and a run in the first inning. Although we ended up taking a tough loss of 8-2 we had plenty of great at bats to get a couple of runs against the 5th ranked team in the country. Our next game against Cal State Fullerton did not go as expected. The teams energy seemed a little down from our long break in between games and ended up with another loss of 1-7. 

This blog is written by Ray Ferrari, a sophomore Communication Studies major from Eugene, Ore. Ray works in the LMU Sports Media department, is a leader of the ROAR Student Section, is a former sports writer at The Los Angeles Loyolan, and is a member of The Crimson Circle service organization. His weekly recap of LMU Athletics will be posted here every Tuesday allowing for a quick glance at the week that was in Lion Sports.

With baseball and golf beginning play last week, spring sports are now in full swing and hoping to provide some Lion success as the basketball teams continue to struggle towards the end of the winter season.

The baseball team started their season at home over the weekend with a series against the visiting Utah Utes. After a sloppy Friday game left LMU with a 6-3 loss, the Lions then turned the series around with stellar pitching. The Lions won 1-0 on Saturday and 11-2 on Sunday to take the series and advance to 2-1.

The golf team had its first tournament of the spring last week at The Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. The tough course conditions left the Lions scrambling all week, which resulted in a tenth place finish out of 12 teams. Now, LMU is currently playing in the Folino Invite at Industry Hills Golf Club in Industry Hills, Calif., which will finish play later this week.

After a strong 3-1 start, the women's tennis team hit a bump last weekend in Santa Barbara. A long match with UCSB brought play into dusk and with no lights on the court, two of the singles matches had to be decided by quick tiebreakers rather than a third set, which led to a heartbreaking 4-3 loss for the Lions. LMU was then defeated again the next day 6-1 by the University of Colorado.

LMU track and field competed at the Pomona-Pitzer All-Comers meet over the weekend. The highlight of the meet for the Lions was junior Kevin Joerger winning the 3000-meter race. Many other lions set personal records at the meet as well.

The men's basketball team went 0-2 on the weekend yet again, extending their losing streak to ten games and dropping them to 1-12 in WCC play. At Pepperdine on Thursday, it looked as if the Lions were finally going to get a win but a pair of missed free throws by the Lions and a basket by the Waves in the final minute gave Pepperdine the 52-50 win. At home against Saint Mary's on Saturday, the Gaels roster was just too big and too deep to handle, defeating the Lions 61-50 in front of the parents' weekend crowd.

The women's basketball team only had one game last week, which was a home loss against San Diego on Thursday. The 66-59 defeat was close, but LMU trailed the entire game. The loss dropped the Lions to 3-9 and seventh place in the conference.

Swimming, women's water polo, softball, and men's tennis were off last week but will return to play next weekend.

Hey there tennis fans!

            I hope you all had a well rested weekend and enjoyed the weather reaching into the 80's believe it or not. It's about time! We're so spoiled living in Southern California sometimes. Anything in the 60's and below is freezing to us. We can't even fathom what the harsh winters are bringing the east coasters right about now.

            Most of our team battled little hick-ups of injuries, which prohibited them from carrying on full practices this week. However, they properly took care of themselves in the training room and built up each day with more hitting in order to gear up for our big weekend of back-to back matches in Santa Barbara.

            My Peruvian teammate Claudia, but we call her "Clau" put on a lovely upbeat Spanish playlist for our strength workout with Nick this week. There's something about that Spanish flavor that is so catchy sometimes. Even Nick, our strength training coach and the most difficult to please when it comes to music, enjoyed the little Spanish mix.

            After drowning our sorrows in the thought that none of our team had valentines for Valentines Day (except for Adri who has a boyfriend who we all love and is one of our biggest fans) our coach, Jamie, or 'Jimbo' as we prefer calling him, gave us a glimmer of hope when he blessed our whole team with V-Day grams. It easily made all of our days! We couldn't have asked for a better valentine! We carried out the rest of day in high spirits and positive vibes, and then some of us treated ourselves to some Pinkberry later where I got my first medium sized fro-yo! I always settle for the mini, but in honor of this holiday giving me an excuse to binge on sweets, I thought why not go up in size! Oh man it was good.

            Unfortunately your Lady Lions faced two tough rounds of tennis in Santa Barbara this weekend. We fell just short to UCSB 4-3 on Saturday where we seemed to have had a rather slow start. On Sunday, we lost to Colorado State. I think our team has a lot of energy and spirit but we sometimes channel that energy elsewhere for a little. Winning that doubles point is so key and can really help our confidence towards the singles matches to follow. However, we have to keep up the intensity throughout the whole singles matches because they are not quick 8 game pro sets, they're 2 out of 3 sets. You gotta be in it to win it the whole time because the match doesn't end after the doubles point! There are definitely things we all need to work on but I am confident, without a shadow of a doubt that our team can improve and get there!

            In fact, I think we will make some improvements by this Friday against our match against SDSU. Wish us the best of luck for the upcoming week! We hope to kick some lion butt and do LMU proud!

Until next time!

Logan

This blog is written by Ray Ferrari, a sophomore Communication Studies major from Eugene, Ore. Ray works in the LMU Sports Media department, is a leader of the ROAR Student Section, is a former sports writer at The Los Angeles Loyolan, and is a member of The Crimson Circle service organization. His weekly recap of LMU Athletics will be posted here every Monday allowing for a quick glance at the week that was in Lion Sports.

As the basketball teams continue to struggle, disappoint, and sometimes embarrass the LMU community, the fan base is beginning to look towards the spring sports season with hopes of Lion success.

The sun is out and the grass is looking good at Page Stadium, where the baseball team will open up its season this weekend when they host Utah for a three-game series. Tuesday night in the batting cages, the LMU baseball program is having its first event of the new "10th Man" project in hopes to gain more of a fan presence in the stands at baseball games for 2013.

Softball opened up their 2013 season last weekend in St. George, Utah, where they played five games in three days in true collegiate softball fashion. The Red Desert Classic gave LMU five games against five opponents to kick off the year. The Lions started off strong with a 9-0 win over Colorado St. and a 6-0 win over Weber St. The Lions also beat Utah St. 3-0, but lost games against Utah and Arkansas for a 3-2 tournament record. 

The women's water polo team also had a big weekend, going 3-1 with three of the four games decided by two goals or less. At the UCSD Triton Invitational, LMU opened play against the host team, #19 UC San Diego, which ended in a bitter 8-7 loss. The Lions then went on to win the rest of their games with big wins over Marist, CSU Bakersfield, and #10 Michigan.

Women's tennis also continued its early season hot streak last week with a 7-0 sweep of UC Riverside at home. The Lions are now 3-1 and undefeated at home to start the 2013 campaign. They will continue their full, tough non-conference schedule next weekend against UC Santa Barbara and Colorado.

The men's tennis team is still trying to find its rhythm early on in the season. The Lions are in the midst of a long and exhausting road trip, containing match after match of tough competition. This along with three crucial injuries has resulted in a 0-6 start after falling to UC Santa Barbara 6-1 and losing 5-2 at Cal Poly.

The women's basketball team finally got a much-needed win last week, when they took down Santa Clara 71-50 at home last Thursday. The victory snapped a four-game losing streak but was followed with a game against first place Gonzaga, in which the Lions lost 70-56.

As for the men's basketball team, most of you know the story. The Lions have displayed a fruitless offense all year and continue to live and die by the three. And for a team that is bad at shooting threes, that means lots of death. LMU continued to shoot terribly from the field in the Northwest over the weekend, as the team dropped to 1-10 in WCC play after a 69-60 loss at Portland and a 74-55 loss at Gonzaga.

Hey there tennis fans!

            We have a new pet mascot, well I guess he's always been around but we might not have noticed him as much as we do now. 'Munchie' as we like to call him, is a squirrel that likes to show up at our practices on the stands of the stadium courts where all of our backpacks are in hopes that we will bless its little heart with scraps of food. To his delight, most of the food we bring to practice or at matches is trail mix and fruit, which is essentially the diet of a squirrel. You can only imagine the excitement that is presented on its face. We feed him from time to time, but what we are starting to realize is that the more we feed him, the more often he is going to return and perch up for more snacks. We will have to do some closer monitoring especially since he has found a way to get into some of our bags and find food.  On the plus side, I think we have found our No. 1 fan!

            I was happy to be mostly pain-free this week during my abbreviated practices on the court. I am slowly getting back to playing, but each time I'm out there, it makes me appreciate being healthy again. As painful as it might be to sit out for a while and rehab, it feels amazing to get back on the court and play. I missed it so much!

            We landed our first match sweep of the season over UC Riverside on Thursday. Our No. 2 player, Tory Parravi sat this match out to recover from a pulled muscle in her arm so the lineup was adjusted slightly. I'm proud of my Lady Lions for taking care of business out there. We hope to keep this winning energy and results into next week against Santa Barbara and Colorado State. Wish us luck!

Until next time!

Logan

The moment we have all been waiting for has finally arrived! The kick off to softball season has started in the cold and chilly mountains of Saint George, Utah. For some of us it was a first time of seeing snow fall. And ifyou were wondering...yes we did play while it was snowing during a game tonight! To kick off the year on Thursday, February 7, the lady lions competed against Colorado State University bringing in our first win of 9-0! Shout out to freshman Stephanie Crist for two homeruns that game as well as freshamn pitcher Sydney Gouveia for throwing a great game. Our first game today against Weber State University started off with excitement ending in a 6-0 win! Everyone contributed and played as a team. A strong start continued in our second game of the day against the University of Utah with a 3 run lead in the first inning. Unfortunately that did not continue to the end of the game where we fell to our first loss of a score 9-3. Eating a nice meal and getting some sleep is on our list for tonight. We cannot wait to come back strong as a team tomorrow and take more W's. Cross your fingers it is a bit warmer too! LION LOVE

G'day LMU tennis fans,

We are fully into the "swing" of things for this semester and have already played a number of matches. Unfortunately the results have not gone our way thus far, but that's college tennis, each person plays a critical role to the teams success. The team travelled to Iowa to play 2 teams in indoor conditions, which was a great experience. A large majority of the teams around the country play most of the year indoors due to the freezing weather, so it was fantastic being able to see the indoor facilities and experience the different atmosphere playing indoors. It was so cold one of the mornings that our coach Aaron was able to walk on river that had frozen over and Jack nearly fell flat on his backside when he didn't realize that the road had a thin layer of ice on it.

We have an exciting weekend lined up with two matches on the road. Saturday we will face Santa Barbara, and Sunday we will play Cal Poly. Both matches are going to be hard fought battles, and hopefully we can show some grit and put in a great team performance.

The team has one new member this semester with local Cris Rivera from Santa Monica joining the squad. He has been playing some great tennis and I love how he fights for every point! Keep an eye out for him this season!

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Go Lions.

Daniel Simko

Hey there LMU tennis fans!

            February is already here! We are inching our way closer to consistent warm temperatures and healthy people overcoming their sicknesses. Getting sick in college is the worst!  When one person gets sick, it's nearly impossible for others not to catch whatever bug is roaming around campus. Unfortunately, I caught this little 'bug.' It started with a sore throat and quickly turned to a flu. Living in such close quarters with my roommates and being around my teammates everyday for long periods of time, I have warned them all to take every pre-cautions for getting sick. Emergen-C and Vitamin C is key at a time like this! I am extremely stubborn when it comes to being sick, so I think I am better than I actually am, when I realize I'm not, and I really just need to just stay in bed and let this sicknesss just run its course. I finally gave in and got an appropriate and relaxing 12 hours of sleep. And oh man, that made all the difference! Our coach keeps suggesting to our team that we get flu shots, and after this little sick period, I wouldn't say that's such a bad idea!

            Our strength training coach, Nick gave us little gifts this week in weights. He helps us get fit in the gym, and he gives us gifts? What a guy! We all got our own foam rolls and stretch bands which will be very useful for us prior to getting on the court as well as after to stretch out all of those body kinks and sore muscles. Coach Jamie and Nick want us to incorporate the foam roll and stretch band into a routine every time we step on the court. Sure, it might require a little more time, but it will be worth it in the end when we are not aching the next day with unbearable pain. Our body can be fresh and ready for the next day of tennis whether it's practice or for a match. Otherwise, we might need to take an additional step back and take it slow so the body can recover a little from the harsh strain that was put on it the day before. So I think this new addition to our regular routine will make a difference in our success this season! Plus I think we look pretty cool lugging around our little foam rolls around!

            We had an awesome weekend of tennis! Your LMU Lady Lions pulled out a major upset against No. 39 ranked CSULB (CSU Long Beach) on Friday. I am so proud of all of them! We had a really tough match against them last year where it came down to the bitter end so it was really nice to get the victory this time around! Sweet revenge! On Sunday, we lost a tough match against UC Irvine but we battled hard!

My Switzerland teammate, Lisa turned 22 on Wednesday. As a team, we took her out to Venice for dinner to celebrate! Venice is such a fun place to go, and we're so lucky that it's a short distance from campus...yet another reason to love LMU.

            Next week, we have a match against UC Riverside on Thursday at 1:30! Come out and support and wish your Lady Lions good luck!

Until next time!

Logan

This blog is written by Ray Ferrari, a sophomore Communication Studies major from Eugene, Ore. Ray works in the LMU Sports Media department, is a leader of the ROAR Student Section, is a former sports writer at The Los Angeles Loyolan, and is a member of The Crimson Circle service organization. His weekly recap of LMU Athletics will be posted here every Monday allowing for a quick glance at the week that was in Lion Sports.

Lion pride is at a true low point around campus these days, with most LMU teams continuing their slumps over the past week. 

In what some might call the most anticipated LMU sporting event every year, the men's basketball team had no answers for the visiting Gonzaga Bulldogs. Last Thursday, LMU hosted Gonzaga in front of a packed Gersten Pavilion with hopes of upsetting the No. 7 Bulldogs, who are undefeated in the WCC. But the Lions failed to get stops on defense or baskets on offense, which added up to an embarrassing 88-43 loss. 

The women's basketball team had an unpleasant visit to the Northwest over the weekend, dropping another two conference games, extending their losing streak to four. Thursday night, the Lions fell to Gonzaga 79-57 before losing another close game with Portland, 65-63 on Saturday.

In their final meet before the season finale at the MPSF Championships, the LMU swimming team dropped a pair of decisions at UC Santa Barbara Saturday. At the double dual meet, the Lions fell to host UCSB 176-85 and also lost to Pacific 159-103. This meet ended the Lions' regular season, as the team will now begin preparation for the conference championships in two weeks.

The women's tennis team provided the highlight of the week when they upset No. 39 Long Beach St. at home 4-3 on Friday. The big non-conference win took the Lions to 2-0 to start the season. However, their luck changed when they went on the road Sunday as LMU was swept 7-0 to No. 65 UC Irvine.

The men's tennis team had a tough test at hand on Sunday as they took on No. 2 USC, who has dominated the region for years. The Lions lost 6-1 and dropped to a bitter 0-4 to start 2013.

While most of the teams in season are struggling, other teams are making coaching moves in hopes to foster future success. The women's volleyball team just named Ron Larson as its top assistant coach. Larson is the former head coach at UC Riverside and has also helped coach the U.S. Olympic team. The softball team just added Katie Schroeder to the coaching staff as well. Schroeder was a two-time All-American for UCLA before graduating last year.