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Long Beach State University Athletics
LBSU Hosts Brown, Visits No. 16 Pepperdine This Week
3/29/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
LONG BEACH, Calif. - After hosting a pair of ranked teams last week, Long Beach State (12-3) faces another difficult pair of matches this week. First up, the Beach will host Brown (9-4) on Thursday at 2 p.m. at Rhodes Tennis Center to conclude a six-match homestand. Then, LBSU will hit the road to face No. 16 Pepperdine (9-4) on Friday at 1:30 p.m. in Malibu.
LAST TIME OUT
• The Beach faced off against two ranked opponents at Rhodes Tennis Center, going 1-1 with a 4-3 loss to No. 39 Dartmouth and a 5-2 win over No. 46 Denver. The teams actually ended up playing a round robin last week with Denver defeating Dartmouth on a neutral site.
• Freshman Natalia Munoz led the team with a 4-0 week and senior Julie Gerard picked up a ranked win over Denver's Maureen Slattery, who was ranked No. 116 in the country among singles players. Gerard was a 7-5, 6-7 (3), 10-5 winner in that match.
BEACH THREEPEAT
• The last three winners of Big West Women's Tennis Athlete of the Week have all been from Long Beach State. First, it was Maeva Razkasoa winning her sixth career AOTW honor on Mar. 15, followed by Julie Gerard on Mar. 22 and Natalia Munoz on Mar. 29.
• Gerard and Munoz both won the award for the first time in their careers thanks to 4-0 weeks on the court. For Munoz, her four wins were against players from ranked teams: No. 39 Dartmouth and No. 46 Denver.
ACROSS THE NET - BROWN
• The Bears are 9-4 thanks to a current three-match winning streak. Brown picked up an impressive 4-3 home win over then-No. 41 William & Mary last Saturday, and defeated UC Irvine, 6-1, on Tuesday of this week.
• This is Brown's second West Coast trip of the season. The Bears went 0-2 against San Diego (L, 6-1) and San Diego State (L, 4-3) earlier in the month.
• Long Beach State holds a 7-1 advantage over Brown all-time, and this is the first meeting between the two programs since 2007. Brown's lone win over LBSU came back in 1999.
ACROSS THE NET - PEPPERDINE
• The Waves are one of the best teams in the West Coast, ranked at No. 16 in the nation and sitting behind only No. 8 Stanford and No. 14 California among teams in the Pacific time zone. They're on a four-match winning streak with wins over Denver (6-1), UC Santa Barbara (5-2), Pacific (4-0) and St. Mary's (4-0).
• Pepperdine has several players included in the national rankings: four singles plyers and two doubles pairs. In singles, Luisa Stefani is ranked No. 6 in the nation, followed by Ashley Lahey at No. 13, Mayar Sherif Ahmed at No. 28 and Laura Gulbe at No. 79. In doubles, Christine Maddox and Ahmed are No. 3 in the country and the team of Stefani and Apichaya Runglerdkriangkrai are ranked at No. 30.
• These teams met last season with the Waves winning 6-1 in Long Beach. LBSU's last win at Pepperdine was in 2012, a 5-2 victory for the 49ers.
100 WINS AND RUNNIN'
• With a 6-3, 6-0 win over Georgetown's Victorie Saperstein on Mar. 7, senior Maeva Razakasoa reached 100 career singles wins at Long Beach State. She is the new all-time leader in career singles wins, ahead of current LBSU assistant coach Anais Dallara.
• Razakasoa has a career win percentage of just under .800, and during dual match play, has played 67 of her 80 singles matches at the No. 1 spot in the Beach lineup.
• As of this week, Razakasoa's career singles win total is at 104, bringing her overall wins total at Long Beach State to 177. She is also on track to challenge Dallara's record for overall wins in a career.
SENIORS SPECIAL
• The 2017 senior class will go down as one of the best in Long Beach State history, and is already the winningest. All four of this year's seniors—Laura Eales, Julie Gerard, Maeva Razakasoa and Hayley Thompson—are in the Top 15 for overall wins in program history, still with a final semester yet to play.
• Razakasoa is a two-time and defending Big West Player of the Year. She is looking to claim the conference's top honor for the third time this season, which would put her one award shy of LBSU Hall of Famer Hannah Grady.
• Razakasoa briefly entered the national singles rankings on Feb. 8, checking in at No. 124 in the country.
Players Mentioned
