Citizen Staff Writer
ARIZONA WILDCATS SPORTS
BRYAN LEE
brylee@tucsoncitizen.com
You win some, you lose some, you win some again. That’s a typical college tennis match scenario.
Arizona freshman Natasha Marks gets it now.
Marks, UA’s No. 2 singles player, dominated Sacramento State opponent Maria Meliuk 6-2 in their first singles set Friday then had to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win 6-4 in the second.
It helped spark the No. 62-ranked Wildcats (10-5) to a 5-2 upset victory against the No. 39 Hornets.
Marks proclaimed herself ready for the season’s big test in the coming weeks – Pac-10 opponents. She was anything but freshman-looking in the first set, moving Meliuk around like her opponent was on a chessboard.
“I was able to come to the net,” said Marks (12-4), “but then she figured it out. I just had to play solid then. The game gets complicated.”
At No. 1 singles, UA’s Danielle Steinberg (13-3) made it look easy at first. Then Katrina Zhertova got her into the baseline game to try to wear her down.
It’s a strategy that frustrates Steinberg and it worked for her opponent. But Steinberg managed to eventually win in three sets, 7-5, 6-7, 7-5, in a three-hour match.
“(Steinberg) did great . . . despite being exhausted going into the last set,” UA coach Vicky Maes said.
The Wildcats next visit Stanford at 2:30 p.m. Friday.
UA men’s swimming
UA’s men’s swimming team sits in fifth place with a day to go at the NCAA Championships in College Station, Texas.
UA, the defending national champion, has 229 points. Texas (348) is in first.
In the 200-yard free, UA’s Jean Basson finished fourth in 1 minutes, 32.77 seconds and Nicolas Nilo placed sixth in 1:33.76.
Jack Brown finished fourth in the 400-yard IM for UA in 3:41.49, while Marcus Titus was seventh in the 100 breast stroke in 52.21.
In the 200 medley relay, the team of Jake Tapp, Titus, Bryan O’Connor and Jordan Smith placed fourth in 1:23.93.
UA ended the night with a narrow loss to Texas in the 800 free relay.
The team of Basson, Nilo, Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or and Joel Greenshields finished in 6:11.82, just behind the Longhorns’ American record time of 6:10.16.
UA baseball
The Wildcats’ rough Pac-10 start continued in Los Angeles on Friday night.
UA (11-11, 0-4) fell 7-6 to UCLA despite scoring three runs in the top of the ninth.
Brad Glenn hit a three-run homer – his second blast of the night – in the ninth to cut the lead to one.
But UCLA reliever Gavin Brooks struck out Dillon Baird to end the game.
Bobby Coyle also homered for the Wildcats.
Preston Guilmet (2-3) took the loss for UA, allowing six runs on seven hits in 6 1/2 innings.
The teams meet again at 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
UA men’s tennis
The Wildcats stretched their winning streak to 14 on Friday by beating host Oregon 7-0.
Jay Goldman won 6-4, 6-4 at No. 1 singles for 20th-ranked UA (16-1, 1-0).
UA women upset Sacramento State in tennis