Season's success to be defined by five days in March

The Colorado-Colorado Springs men's tennis season will be defined by five days in March.

That's when the Mountain Lions travel through Missouri, and face a different regionally ranked team on five consecutive days, then return home to meet West Texas - yet another ranked team - on April 1.

The trip will give coach Scott Shankles a gauge with which to measure his squad - a squad that made the regional tournament last year for the first time in school history.

"It will be a positive experience with a potentially positive outcome," said Shankles. "It will help to improve our ranking with the goal of qualifying for the regionals and it will also give us experience against the teams we would face there. That's something that I think hurt us last year."

Last year, the Mountain Lions were eliminated in the first round of the regional tournament by the nation's top-ranked team, Ouachita Baptist.

"We really didn't know what were getting into," said Shankles. "We had faced ranked teams as part of our conference schedule, but we were still a little intimidated."

This year, the Mountain Lions will face Northwest Missouri State (ranked 12th in the region in preseason), Rockhurst (16th), Drury (first in the region and first nationally), Southwest Baptist (fourth in the region and 20th nationally) and Washburn (17th in the region) on consecutive days. Then they will return home to play West Texas A&M (seventh). Seven days, six ranked opponents and no excuses.

Add to that a conference schedule that includes Metro State, Colorado School of Mines and Mesa State - all ranked among the region's top 20 - and intimidation will no longer be a factor in the regionals.

Five days in March will be a good indication of whether the Mountain Lions can go beyond that.

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.