UNLV roundup: Women’s tennis team opens meet with flourish

Aiwen Zhu, En-Pei Huang, Izumi Asano and Samantha Li each won in singles and were part of a doubles victory for the UNLV women’s tennis team Friday as it went 7-1 to open the Rebel Invitational at Fertitta Tennis Complex.

The individual event includes competitors from eight other teams: Air Force, Arizona, Iowa, Liberty, North Texas, Purdue, Texas A&M and Texas Tech.

In the top singles flight, 49th-ranked Zhu swept Minying Liang of North Texas 6-3, 6-3. Zhu and Huang, ranked 37th nationally in doubles, won 6-3 over Meredith Jones and Ashleigh Harvey of Air Force.

Anna Bogoslavets downed Iowa’s Sophie Clark 6-0, 6-4 in the second singles flight, Asano downed Arizona’s Taylor Tamblyn 6-2, 6-0 in the third singles flight, Huang beat Air Force’s Nadeen Lieberman 6-3, 6-0 in the fourth singles flight, Li topped Air Force’s Alex Kuo 6-3, 6-1 in the fifth singles flight, and Alex Kalachova lost 1-6, 7-5, 6-4 to Liberty’s Rebekah Anderson in the sixth singles flight.

Asano and Li teamed for a 6-3 win over Iowa’s Danielle Burich and Danielle Bauers in the third doubles flight.

The tournament continues Saturday and runs through Sunday.

CROSS COUNTRY

At Sacramento, Calif., the Rebels placed 32nd out of 36 teams with a score of 978 and a time of 1:56:46 at the NCAA West Regional.

UNLV had three runners finish the 6-kilometer race within 18 seconds of each other in the 250-runner field, with Elisa Rovere placing 155th in 22:21.7, followed by Avi’Tal Wilson-Perteete (180th, personal-best 22:35.5) and Emma Wahlenmaier (195th, 22:49.6).

Kennedy Allen (229th, 23:53.9) was fourth for the Rebels and Grace Moore (247th, 25:06.0) fifth.

Oregon and Boise State placed first and second to advance to next week’s NCAA Championships in Madison, Wisconsin.

Oregon, which had the second- and third-fastest runners and four in the top 13, totaled 44 points and a time of 1:38:30. Boise State had all five of its runners place in the top 16 and totaled 49 points with a time of 1:38:46.

Boise State’s Allie Ostrander won in 19:09.0, with Oregon’s Jessica Hull (19:22.5) second and Susan Ejore (19:24.6) third.

VOLLEYBALL

UNLV alum and current assistant coach Melody Nua was one of 12 recipients of the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s 2018 Diversity Award, which provides the opportunity for up-and-coming ethnic minority coaches to attend the AVCA convention from Dec 12 to 16 in Minneapolis.