bigfoot, I guess my point with Sheri was that (and forgive me, as I don't have as in-depth of an understanding of the game as you do, so I could be way off base) her game seems to fit better playing against players higher in the order. She hits the ball hard, and plays fairly aggressively, and I feel like at the 6 line, you're playing against a lot of players who are just trying to survive the match, so to speak, and they take advantage of her being really aggressive. She also has a tendency to get leads at the 6 line, and then lose focus and squander them away. I wonder if playing higher keeps her head in the game more.

Again, this is just what it "seems like" to me, and I would be totally ok if you still disagreed.

FWIW, I just checked, and she's 2-0 at the 4 line and 1-4 at 5/6. I know it's a relatively small sample, but still interesting. I don't know why you don't just stick her at 4 until she loses there!

GBW, it is true that a lot of #6 players (both in mens and womens college tennis) are grinder-scrapper types...Nicki Mechem was a great example of someone that could absolutely kill it at the bottom but couldn't play in the top of the lineup...and a lot of people who can bang the ball and stay on the court with big hitters have a lot harder time against what I will call the "grunts" (and I mean that as endearingly as possible) that usually play 6...but I don't think that Sheri is necessarily one of those players.

My opinion is that we have a GREAT #1-3 but that we don't even have one good #6 among the rest of our 5 players, much less a #4 & #5. It seems strange that they can recruit the hardest part of the lineup to recruit and then have a hard time finding depth. I think that this 1-3 is just as good as the Jessica Roland/Helga Vieira squads (that were the best that Kleinecke ever had). The big difference is that there are no Roberta Spencers and Lauren Walkers to provide some bang in the middle of the order. It seems like with all of the great Texas junior players they would be able to recruit a few that could play at the bottom of the lineup.

By the way, whatever happened to Ashley Turpin? I guess she is gone.

The tough part is that now he loses a great #1 player and has to replace her. Added to that is the fact that you have 3 returners that have either not proven themselves to be able to win matches against top teams even at the bottom of the lineup and Cuthbertson, who can't stay healthy for half a season.

I do agree with the person that said that it seems like this HAS to be a better team than last year with the addition of a great player and losing no one. The problem is that last year's team was a one-and-done NCAA tournament team, not a sweet 16 team.

Sometimes I think that it's a pretty tough job trying to find 6 great players that can stay healthy with only 8 scholarships - not much room for error. Then I remember that the men's team has to do the same thing with 4.5 and I wonder how they seem to get it done every year.

Oh well, lets hope they can turn some of these 3-4 losses into 4-3 wins!

[This message has been edited by bigfoot10s (edited 4/23/2010 8:18p).]

Ashley was a 5-star recruit, number six ranked in the state, top-50 in the nation coming out of HS. Not sure why she never quite got it together here. Met her a few times, and was a very nice girl, but wasn't going to crack this lineup unfortunately. She put up a good fight against SMU last year in the tourny, with Elze out, and saw her play an exhibition against Baylor, but that was it.

Anyways, I think that SMU last year was a perfect example of how well out girls can play. Even without Elze, they took it to 3-3, and had a very good chance at taking the huge upset, but fell apart on a very hot day. I think the girls at the bottom tend to play to their level of competition, which is why they're losing by the same score to no. 50 ranked UNLV as they are to no. 14 Clemson.

That's why, considering how much he's tinkering with the lineup anyways, I'm in favor of throwing some of them a little bit higher in the lineup, just to see what happens. Maybe move Mo, or Nazari down to the 4 line, get the guarantee win there (or even give one a day off in April when they have 5 matches in 8 days) and let one of those girls play at 3. It might not work, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

It would be hard to put Mo or Nazari at 4 because you would have a protest on your hands. Mo has played too high for the last two years to move to 4.

Girls are up 5-0 on tcu, which shouldn't come as a surprise. Easy singles wins by nazari, Mo, Lauren, and Christi. Still fighting at 1 and 6. Glad the girls got this win, we definitely needed it!

putting nazari any lower than 2 or morgan any lower than 3 would be a blatant stack, and as already mentioned, would be protested.

turpin was a highly rated recruit, but anyone who knew her game could tell you that she would have been hard pressed to ever win consistently any higher than 6 in d-1 tennis.

the win over tcu was much needed. the real test of whether or not this team can be top 30 is against smu, who lost to texas 3-4 today.

just saw that smu was without vankova for their loss to tu. that explains it. the ags have a chance against them too as long as she is out.

Forgot about the stack rules. Still, someone's going to need a rest in April.

Great win against TCU. They are definitely down this year and are on a tough losing streak, but they beat t.u. earlier this season with the same lineup they played against us, so it is a solid win for the Ags.

These next few matches should show us exactly how good we are, and then the Big XII schedule is going to be tougher than usual, with OU and OSU being much stronger than they have been and Nebraska and Colorado still being fairly decent. I think we match up poorly against t.u. and have no shot against Baylor, but at least there are some decently ranked teams in conference this year and we can definitely get back to the top 25 if we take care of business against SMU and Arkansas and win the matches we ought to win in the Big XII.

Ps - I am glad that the "fire Kleinecke" idiot seems to be gone...he went through half a dozen handles but I'm sure you all remember him.

Why aren't we talking about the men?
We know where the women will end up....

Ags lose 5-2 to Illinois and 4-3 to Ohio State. A good weekend though as there were a lot of competitive lines. Hopefully Denton has found the right combo for 5/6. More Bautista/Lunt, less Beef/Hoover.

[This message has been edited by bigfoot10s (edited 4/23/2010 8:18p).]

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I like Colin a lot, and think he has as much heart as anyone on the team, but Marcus needed to be in the lineup for the OSU match.

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+1

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Corbelli. Until her run this year, they weren't that impressive over her years.

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Whatchoo talkin' about? Corbelli made the NCAA's 13 years in a row including 5 Sweet 16s or Elite Eights...

Women down to #56 in the polls - lost 5-2 to # 33 SMU...not good.

Aggie men beat #11 Cal tonight at home...nice win for the guys!!

Really nice win.

[This message has been edited by SA68AG (edited 3/13/2010 5:36p).]

Aggie men back up to 18. 6 of 7 Big 12 teams in the top 25.

Krajicek is 21 and Dadamo is 30, and together, they're 9 in doubles.

Two nice wins yesterday. Got to play a lot of young players in the Lamar match and they responded well, after a very shaky doubles performance. The Pepperdine match was what you would expect. They may be a little down this year, but they are very talented. Austin battled back after losing the first set to win his match. The rest of the matches were tough, but if you had told me going in we would win 6-1, I would have been suprised. The guys take on a good Louisville team on Sunday at 1. Louisville took it to us at their place last year, and are ranked about 12, I believe.

the Aggie men are back up to where they started the season, ranked 12 in the country. the jump from 17 to 12 came as a result of wins over louiville, ou, and osu, as well as some of the teams we beat earlier in the year getting some good wins.

gotta keep the momentum going against uta and rice.

Thanks for the update..sure would like to finish the year in the 12 hole or higher.