March 25, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

Briefly
Loyola Marymount men's tennis hits the road this week for a pair of matches. First, the Lions will face West Coast Conference foe, 62nd-ranked San Diego on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, LMU heads to San Luis Obispo where they will face the Cal Poly Mustangs at 1:00 p.m.

LMU This Season
The young Lions will be counting on their five returners for leadership this season. Coming back for LMU are seniors Sam Tadevosian and Jacek Twarowski, along with sophomores, Renzo Maggi, Dmitry Popov and Nick Von Der Ahe. In addition, first-year head coach Brad Sceney also welcomes four freshmen, Aris Andreasian (Glendale, CA), Johan Berhof (Kullavik, Sweden), Ivan Lopez (Almeria, Spain) and Stefan Nikolic (Belgrade, Serbia). "Our newcomers are going to have to be ready to perform straight away and I believe they are," Sceney said. "Also our sophomores are going to have to step up a notch from last year and be ready for plenty of playing time. Our team goal is to finish in the top-4 in the conference, last year we took 7th place." "We are currently unranked but we have every opportunity to achieve a national ranking with the schedule that we have," Sceney added. "We face two top-20 teams which will be a great test, and six other teams that are ranked, so the opportunities are there". Over the course of the spring 2008 season, the Lions will face a total of eight teams that appear in the national rankings.

Last Week Recap
A contest between Dartmouth and Loyola Marymount University came down to the very last singles match, as the Big Green edged the Lions 4-3 Wednesday at the LMU Tennis Center. Dartmouth took the doubles point with Mark Brodie and Jeffrey Schectman defeating Sam Tadevosian and Jacek Twarowski at No. 1, 8-6, and David Fink and Curtis Roby beating Johan Berhof and Nick Von Der Ahe at the No. 3 slot, 8-1. Renzo Maggi and Ivan Lopez won their match on court two, defeating Ari Gayer and Daniel Freeman, 8-4. In singles action, the deciding match point came down to the outcome on court six where Nikolic faced Dartmouth's Jeffrey Schectman. Nikolic put up an impressive fight, but ultimately could not hold on, falling 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 to Schectman. In other singles play, Mark Brodie defeated Twarowski at the No. 1 spot (6-4, 6-4), Lopez won his match on court two, defeating Daniel Freeman (6-4, 6-2) and Tadevosian was victorious at No. 3 singles, beating Justin Tzou (6-1, 6-3). Maggi won his match on court four, beating Ari Gayer (6-3, 6-3), and Berhof lost his match to Curtis Roby in straight sets at No. 5 singles (6-3, 6-2).

About #62 San Diego
The USD men's tennis team, ranked 62nd nationally, posted a 7-0 victory over the University of Utah Tuesday afternoon at the West Tennis Courts. The Toreros only lost one match on the day when Charl Wolmarans and Tamer Antabi were defeated 2-8 by Wes Hancock and Timmy Allen in doubles. In singles, Thomas Liversage was taken into a third set against Zach Ganger going on to win 6-3, 4-6, and 10-2. Jose Munoz played in the last match of the day as he was taken into a third set as well going on to win 6-7, 1-6, and 6-4. USD fell 6-1 the following day to crosstown rival San Diego State at the USD West Tennis Courts. San Diego State swept the doubles event. USD's Chris Coetzee and Thomas Liversage nearly had a victory over Bartosz Golas and Juan Gomez, but came up short 8-6. In singles, No. 45 ranked Thomas Liversage took Matan Shitrit into a super-tiebreaker. San Diego's lone victory came in No. 66 ranked Dean Jackson defeated Achim Ceban 6-0, 6-1 preventing the shutout. San Diego is 8-9 so far this season, 1-0 in WCC play. Tom Hagedorn is in his 12th season as head coach of the Toreros.

About Cal Poly
Cal Poly's men's tennis team fell to No. 43 Harvard University, 6-1 Sunday at Mustang Courts. The Mustangs received their only point of the day from Darryn Young at the No. 2 position in singles. Young went head to head with the Crimson's Chris Clayton, losing the first set, 2-6. Young came back to win the second set, 7-5 and then fought off Clayton in the third, 11-9. Young improves his dual record to 8-5 and 4-3 at the No. 2 spot. Cal Poly's Alexander Sonesson played at the No.5 position for the second time of the season winning the first set, 6-3, but was unable to defeat Aba Omodele-Lucien, who won the match in the final two sets, 6-2, 7-6. Sonesson evened out his record to 4-4 in dual action. Stepping up into singles play for the first time of the spring season, is Cal Poly's Robert Zacks. Zacks fell at the No, 6 position, 6-0, 6-1. The final three single matches each finished in two sets. In doubles, Harvard was able to defeat the Mustangs in all three matches for the early lead and doubles point. The Mustangs fall to 8-7 in the dual season. Justin McGrath is entering his second season as head coach for the Cal Poly men's tennis team. Last season, the Lions defeated the nationally-ranked Mustangs 5-2 at the LMU Tennis Center.

Head Coach Brad Sceney
Sceney comes to the bluff after serving as the Director of Tennis at The Paseo Club in Valencia, CA., and enjoying an impressive collegiate career at Pepperdine from 1995-98. "We are excited to add Brad to our LMU family," LMU Athletic Director, Bill Husak said. "Brad has championship experience, both collegiately in the West Coast Conference, and professionally on the ATP Tour. We look forward to watching his leadership in action as he begins his work with our program." An All-American while at Pepperdine, Sceney helped the Waves to a top-10 ranking each of his four seasons in Malibu. His mark of 85 career singles victories is still the Pepperdine record today. In 1996, Sceney won the All-American Doubles Championship. Following his collegiate career, Sceney spent time in the professional tennis ranks, earning rankings in the top-600 in singles and top-300 in doubles after just one year on the ATP Tour. "I am excited to return to the collegiate athletics world," Sceney said. "LMU is a fantastic place to work and play, with a beautiful campus and great facilities that provide the basis for a top tennis program. I look forward to working toward that end with the team and staff." Sceney, a native of Australia, won the 1992 Australian Open Junior Doubles Championship. He was the second-ranked junior in Australia from 1986-1992 and was a member of the country's junior national team. For the last nine years, Sceney has worked with Topseed Tennis Academy, a corporation that owns and operates three tennis clubs and one sports club in Southern California. Hired as a tennis instructor in 1999, Sceney advanced to the title of Director of Tennis at one of the company's sites, The Paseo Club in Valencia, CA. There, he manages a staff of 10 tennis professionals and coordinates the tennis program for approximately 3,500 members.