Ducks Head to Beehive State
EUGENE – Fresh off of winning their opening Pac-12 match, the Oregon women’s tennis team will now head to the Beehive State for a pair of matches against Utah State at noon on Friday, March 13, followed by BYU a day later at 11 a.m. (PT).
TWICE IS NICE
The Ducks are ranked for the second-straight by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. Oregon checks in at No. 67 this week after downing Washington State, 4-3, last Sunday in its Pac-12 opener.
WE BELIEVE
First up for Oregon on its two-game road trip will be No. 69 Utah State. The Ducks and the Aggies are schedule to battle it out at noon on Friday, March 13, in a non-conference match. USU enters Friday’s match 10-4 overall and 4-1 at home with its lone loss coming against Loyola Marymount on March 12.
Nini Guensler leads the Aggies with an 18-9 mark in singles, playing predominantly in the No. 2 position, and checks in at 8-3 and 2-0 in the No. 1 slot. McKenzie Davis is tied for first on the team with an 18-7 record and rocks a 9-2 mark in dual play, all of which are at the No. 1 position. Sabrina Demerath is 16-11 on the year while Maggie O’Meara comes in with 11 wins while Meghan Lyall is 10-11.
In doubles play, the Aggies are best at the No. 2 spot, sporting an 12-2 record while USU is 10-4 at the No. 1 spot and 8-4 at the No. 3 spot. Kallie Sperry and Turley are 6-1 in the No. 1 spot and have won five-straight while Davis and O’Meara are 8-1 at the No. 2 slot. The third spot for USU has been fairly successfully despite eight different teams playing in that position at 8-4.
BYU BOUND
The Ducks will play their second match in as many days on Saturday, when they face off against No. 52 BYU at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March 14. The Cougars enter this weekend 5-6 in dual play and 1-2 in conference play. BYU is scheduled to play LMU (2-8) in a West Coast Conference match up before battling the Ducks.
The Cougars have dropped four of their last six matches while their last two losses have been by a score of 4-3.
KLUIVING CATCHING EYES
Marlou Kluiving is making great strides in her second season with the Ducks. The sophomore leads Oregon with a 17-2 overall mark in singles play and 9-0 in dual action at the No. 4 singles position. She’s also 10-0 in her last 10 matches in singles play and 6-2 in doubles dual play. Her only losses in singles play came to Washington State’s Elizaveta Luzina who was ranked No. 66 when the two played last October at the USTA/ITA Northwest Regionals and to Sarah Baron of Indiana.
DYNAMIC DUO
The eccentric freshman pair of Nia Rose and Alyssa Tobita has made a splash in the doubles scene during the tournament season. The duo was ranked 10th in the Jan. 6 ITA Northwest Regional rankings after going 12-4. Rose and Tobita opened their collegiate careers by capturing the No. 1 doubles division at the WSU Invitational. The pair also made it to the doubles semifinal of the Bulldog Classic, downing Portland State’s Peri/Vorster 8-4, but a final was not played.
The two freshmen currently boast double-digit wins, with Rose sporting an 12-8 overall record while Tobita is 13-7. Playing every dual match at the No. 1 position, Rose is 5-4 while Tobita is 4-4 at the No. 2 position and 2-0 at the No. 3 position.
KLUIVING MAKING STRIDES
Marlou Kluiving is enjoying a great start to her sophomore year after compiling an 8-2 mark during the tournament season. The Eext, Netherlands, product looks to continue the trend with the start of the dual season.
SILVERIO SIGNS FIRST RECRUITS
In her first signing class as head coach, Alison Silverio inked a pair of five-star recruits. Silverio first signed Daniella Nasser, who hails from Tampa, Fla. The lefty senior at Academy of Holy Names is a three-time District 10 champion in both singles and doubles as well as a regional champion.
They days later, Silverio inked her second five-star recruit in Rebekah Anderson. Anderson, a lefty like Nasser, hails from La Mirada, Calif., where she is ranked No. 14 in the state and No. 19 in the southwest region and No. 77 nationally according to Tennisrecruiting.net. The SoCal native has had plenty of experiences playing against top 50 players in USTA National events.
SILVERIO ADDS GIANNONI
Less than a month after being named the 10th head coach in Oregon women’s tennis history, Alison Silverio announced Tony Giannoni as her assistant coach. Giannoni, a Miami, Fla., native was previously at UCF before joining the Ducks. Silverio and Giannoni have known each other for a while, as they have frequently crossed paths on the recruiting trails.
While with the Knights, Giannoni helped guide them to 14 victories during the 2012-13 season – the most wins in a single season since the 1999-00 season. He also helped freshman Caroline Eberhart reach the 25-win plateau that year, the fourth-best mark in a single season at UCF.
Prior to his time with the Knights, Giannoni spent two seasons with his alma mater, Florida. As a volunteer assistant with UF, the Gators went 24-3 overall – undefeated in SEC play (11-0) – and advanced to the NCAA Final Four in his first season. UF followed up with a sweet sixteen appearance the next year before Giannoni joined UCF.
SILVERIO NAMED 10TH UO WOMEN’S TENNIS HEAD COACH
After an extensive national search, Athletics Director Rob Mullens named Alison Silverio as the 10th women’s tennis head coach at Oregon. Silverio arrived in Eugene after spending the past four seasons as an assistant coach at Georgia Tech, her alma mater. She succeeded Paul Reber who stepped down last April after compiling a 77-101 mark over eight seasons at the helm.
Following a stellar playing career that culminated in captaining the Yellow Jackets to the 2007 NCAA National Championship and earning tournament MVP accolades, Silverio has experienced continued success in the coaching ranks, starting with a two-year stint at North Carolina State, where she helped the Wolfpack to a pair of team NCAA appearances in 2008 and 2010, and assisted with bringing in the first top 25 recruiting class in program history (2010).
At Georgia Tech, she helped assemble the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation in 2012, and followed that up with the No. 6 class in 2013. Silverio tutored the top-ranked doubles team in the nation last spring as well as the ITA National Indoor doubles champions and ITA Regional doubles champions in 2013. The Yellow Jackets made NCAA Sweet 16 appearances in 2012 and 2013.
