The women's tennis team (1-1 Big Ten, 6-7 overall) found a couple of much needed wins in Florida last week. The team traveled to Florida during spring break to take on the University of Illinois-Chicago March 20 and Florida International March 22. The Badgers put out the Flames with a score of 7-0 and battled the Golden Panthers to a 4-3 win.
Against UIC the Badgers were strong, only giving up one doubles match--UIC's Nicole Derouin and Corey Steven defeated UW senior Linde Mues and senior Lara Vojnov 8-4.
Mues' win in singles over UIC's Nicole Derouin marked her 50th career win. Later that week, the UW faced off against FIU. Thanks to two forfeits the Badgers pulled out the win. The Golden Panthers were forced to give up the third slot in doubles after splitting the first two matches. FIU also surrendered the sixth slot in singles securing the Wisconsin victory.
The women are home at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium this weekend to take on No. 54 Purdue on Saturday and 19th-ranked Illinois on Sunday. Both matches are set to begin at 11 a.m.
Led by four event winners, the University of Wisconsin men's track and field team opened its outdoor season at the Northridge Invitational Saturday.
The Badgers won three relays and one individual event. Wisconsin took the sprint medley relay in 3:27.05, the 4 x 200-meter relay in 1:29.14 and the 4 x 800-meter relay in 7:37.38.
Junior Jon Mungen also won the 110-meter high hurdles in 14.15 while redshirt freshman Paul Check was fourth in 14.93.
Redshirt junior Jvontai Hanserd finished second in the 200 meters in 21.32, which ranks 10th in the UW all-time list, and was fourth in the 400 meters with 47.91.
Redshirt freshman Rick Bellford finished second in the triple jump at 48-8 and was also second in the long jump at 22-10.
Redshirt freshman Brent Boettcher and senior Steve Jones tied for third in the high jump at 6-8 while redshirt juniors Ryan Tremelling and Ashraf Fadel tied for third in the pole vault at 14-7 ??. Freshman Zach McCollum finished fifth in the high jump at 6-6 while freshman Wes Ulfig was fifth in the pole vault at 14-1 ??.
Freshman Joe Detmer also finished fifth in the 400-meter hurdles in 54.12.
The Wisconsin women's lightweight varsity boats won their three races to lead the Badgers contingent in racing against Columbia and Central Florida at Canal 54 Saturday.
With cloudy skies and temperatures in the 70s, the top UW boat, the varsity lightweight eight, took Central Florida by three seconds. The Jade Brueckner-coxed crew finished the 2000-meter course in 7:00.5. The Golden Knights crossed in 7:03.8.
The lightweights, with some slight lineup changes, also won a mixed eight race with Columbia's second varsity eight and the Central Florida varsity. The UW won a tight race, besting the Lion crew, 6:57.35 to 6:58.60. UCF finished third in 7:04.08.
Also winning was the UW varsity lightweight four. The Badgers beat a pair of boats from UCF. Wisconsin won in 7:58.6, while UCF clocked 8:02.1 and 8:32.0 for the second and third spots.
Boats from the UW finished behind the Golden Knights in the novice lightweight eight and four races. The eight finished nine seconds back, while the fours fell 20 seconds short of the pace.
