PENN STATE MEN’S TENNIS

Christian Lutschaunig, Alex Fennell, David Kohan, Roman Trkulja, Michael Reilly, Aws Larribi, Coach Zinn

Coach Tobin, Matt Barry, Nika Dolidze, Marc Collado, Tomas Hanzlik, Leo Stakhovsky

WINTER 2014 NEWSLETTER

WWW.GOPSUSPORTS.COM

Last year was a historic year for the Penn State Men’s Tennis Team. Starting the year unranked, the Lions

climbed as high as #16 in the ITA polls and reached an unprecedented #3 in the BIG TEN Conference. His-

toric records kept getting broken; 20 wins in the spring, 22-6 total record, 8-3 in the BIG TEN, Penn State

set a new program mark for wins over ranked opponents with 11, topping the previous high total of 8 in

2008. Penn State also won five road matches against ranked opponents, also a program record . In sched-

ule order, Penn State knocked off No. 33 Virginia Tech, No. 33 VCU, No. 50 Princeton, No. 62 Central Flori-

da, No. 44 Michigan, No. 10 Illinois, No. 28 Northwestern, No. 70 Wisconsin, No. 51 Minnesota, No. 63 Ne-

braska and No. 50 UNC Wilmington. Penn State also defeated St. John's, Michigan State and Iowa, all of

whom have appeared in the Top 75 this spring. The Nittany Lions also finished the spring with a record of

15-0 at home.

EDITOR: Coach Tobin : pjt154@psu.edu

@PennStateMTEN @pennstatemenstennis

The Penn State men’s tennis team wrapped up their fall schedule on November 9. The Nittany Lions traveled to five tournaments this fall, in-cluding the Penn Invitational, ITA All-American Championships, ITA Atlantic Regional, USTA Col-legiate Clay Court Invitational and the William & Mary Invitational.

Penn State totaled 40 singles wins and 18 dou-bles wins. Sophomore Nika Dolidze (Tbilisi, Georgia), senior Tomas Hanzlik (Prague, Czech Republic) and junior Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada) tied for the team lead with six singles

wins each. Dolidze had a strong start to the fall, going 3-1 at the Penn Invite, with wins over players from Cornell, Penn and St. Joseph’s. Hanzlik earned two wins at the ITA Atlantic Re-gional, advancing to the round of 16, and also had two victories each at the USTA Collegiate Clay Court Invitational and William & Mary Invitational. Sophomore Aws Laaribi (Rye, N.Y.) saw his first action as a Nittany Lion this fall at the Penn Invite after transferring from Wake Forest. Laarbi picked up five wins this fall, including three at the William & Mary Invitational.

Junior Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.) collected four wins this fall, including two at the USTA Collegiate Clay Court Invitational. Sophomores Marc Collado (Barcelona, Spain) and Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) also have four wins each. Collado won two matches at the Penn Invitational, whole Fennell advanced to the round of 16 at the ITA Atlantic Regional. Fen-nell’s match against USC’s Erik Johnson at the USTA Collegiate Clay Court Invitational was tel-evised on ESPN3.

Senior Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) had three victories this fall, while sophomore Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.) and junior Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) each had one. Stakhovsky, ranked 29th in the ITA Poll, knocked off Old Dominion’s Carlos Lopez Villa, ranked 42nd, at the William & Mary Invitational. Laaribi and Trkulja combined for five dou-bles wins this fall, tallying two at the Penn Invite and three at the ITA Atlantic Regional, ad-vancing to the quarterfinals. Reilly and Stakhovsky won four doubles matches in tourna-ment play, with three coming at the ITA Atlantic Regional, where they reached the semifinal round. Barry and Fennell paired up for three wins, while Dolidze and Lutschaunig had two doubles wins. Barry and Fennell reached the round of 16 in doubles at the ITA Atlantic Re-gional. The Nittany Lions open up their spring schedule in Nashville, Tenn. on January 23-24 as part of the ITA Kickoff Weekend.

FALL IN REVIEW

“With the success our team had last year it has made this season a challenging one. We are not “sneaking” up on teams this year and they are ready for us at eve-ry tournament. They know that if they can beat the Nittany Lions they have a good chance to be ranked as an individual and as a team. We need to accept this chal-lenge and be ready for whatever comes at us. Some players were ready others were not this Fall. Our emphasis has been on fitness and strength this Fall and hopefully it will show in the Spring Dual Matches. We know we have to be at our peak physical shape to compete for a Big Ten title this Spring.”

OUR SUPPORT TEAM

Paul Tobin, Asst. Coach

Brad Pantell

Head Strength Coach

Brad Summitt

Head Sports Trainer

Ryan Fertsch

Strength Coach

Henry Gilbert

Strength Coach

Patrick Litzinger

Sports Trainer

Michael Reilly, Captain

“The players are ready! We had a great fall regiment and I believe the players are in the best conditioning possible. The key is to sustain and maintain the training. The players want to win, so I am sure they won’t let the winter break slow them down. Great job goes out to our support staff for getting the players physically ready and healthy. I think our focus needs to shift on developing a sound tactical foundation which includes confidence in striking the ball early and with direction. We also need to get more mentally prepared, fight harder and never give up. I think its going to be another great year.”

“Given our daily improvements and fall tournament results, I think we have a great chance to do something special in the spring season. We know that if we collec-tively focus on getting better every day that in the spring goals and results will take care of themselves. We have a challenging schedule, but each guy has experience playing in intense matches which goes a long way. Losing Russell and Chris effects us greatly but we have guys that can step up and play in those high pressure posi-tions. Last year, Penn State tennis established a strong presence for the first time in a while and this year we are going to prove that we are here to stay. We know now that every team will give us their best and we are going to do the same. Our goals are now making a presence in the post season: Big Ten Championship, and hosting/advancing in the NCAA tournament. I know every guy is working extreme-ly hard and smart to reach those goals and as a team there is no ceiling to how well we do this year. We Are!”

Jeff Zinn, Head Coach

PLAYERS CORNER

LEO STAKHOVSKY—SOPHOMORE

“We tried to work on our weaknesses from last season. We are without freshman this year so the coaching staff already knows the players and how to work with every player specifically. We definitely tried to focus on our doubles, because doubles points were a big part of our success last year. And then of course fitness, all the play-ers came back really prepared from the summer break, which helped us to work on physical strength faster (lifting-running). This spring season we have a much better starting position than last year, we will begin the season highly ranked compared, to last year we were out of top 75. I believe we can get into top 10 this year. Our team goal is to get at least to sweet sixteen of the NCAA’s. To maintain our ranking we just have to continue to work hard, stay healthy and prepare ourselves for battles. This year we are not the underdog, so lots of teams are going to want to try to take us out. This year we have to expect the best from every team we play”.

MATT BARRY—JUNIOR

“The team is really looking forward to this upcoming season. We have set up many goals that we have talked about and now want to accomplish them. Every guy on this team is taking a leadership role and this is helping us have great practices before our first match at Kentucky. Right now our motto is “no days off” because we know we have the heart and talent to do something special this spring. We’re going to get every teams best shot this spring so were going to make sure were working hard on and off the court everyday. Were looking forward to the challenge this spring and want to turn heads again!!!”

TOMAS HANZLIK—SENIOR

“I feel that all of us have made great progress throughout this fall season. The coaches have been working with each of us individually to further elevate our games and get us ready for the spring season. We realize that we need to keep working hard in the off-season to live up to the expectations created by last year’s great perfor-mance. With that being said, the entire team is excited to compete in the spring. We’re already counting the days until the season opener against Kentucky. We can’t wait to see all of our hard work in the fall and in the off-season to pay off in the spring. There are a lot of matches ahead of us and I believe that our team chemistry and toughness will be key factors for our success this season”.

AWS LAARIBY—SOPHOMORE

“Looking at our individual team results, I feel like we had a slow start at the beginning of the fall season but as we progressed and played more matches throughout the rest of the fall season, we started winning a lot more matches, in singles and doubles, which will help our momentum and confidence going into the spring. Based on the fall results, we have shown that we have very strong doubles and singles players that will enable us to com-pete with the top teams out there. Our team will be working very hard on and off the court these next two months prior to our first spring dual match to be the best prepared we can be. With our tremendous talent and work ethic, I definitely feel like we can win the Big Ten championships and maintain or even improve our top 25 ranking. We Are!”

ROMAN TRKULJA—JUNIOR

“I feel like we have a very good chance to have another amazing season. All of the guys have been putting in the work; both in the weight room and during practice, and that gives us confidence going into our first match at the ITA kick-off against a top 15 caliber team like Kentucky. In doubles, my partner (Aws Laaribi) and I picked up a big win at the ITA regionals where we defeated the #17 doubles team in the nation. That win really made us believe that we belong with the nation's best and that we can compete with anyone. Now that we are an estab-lished top 25 team and a threat to win the B1G title, we must have a chip on our shoulder as every team that we play is going to give us their best shot. We also need to stay hungry throughout the season and not be satis-fied with simply maintaining out ranking, but want to improve it.”

MARC COLLADO—SOPHOMORE

“We are all willing to have a great season. We have been working really hard and playing some good tourna-ments in the fall in order to get ready for the upcoming season. Furthermore, I feel like the team is more experi-enced after last year and our team chemistry and bonding is extremely important. I think the team needs to keep pushing hard and set new goals. What we did last season was amazing, but we have to put last year's re-sults behind us and focus in the new season. In my opinion, that first match against Kentucky at the ITA Kickoff will be determine course of the season. We are all ready”

DAVID KOHAN—JUNIOR

“Everyone has put in a really big effort this fall. We know that last year was a really big step forward for us but now its all about showing that we can continually compete with the best. Penn State has never had a top ranked tennis program and now that the foundation for one has been laid we need to make sure that we hold ourselves to the high achieving results that we managed to deliver last year, and deliver these continually for years to come. Our work ethic definitely matches what were trying to accomplish this season, we all know that we have under two months to really stretch ourselves and get ready for our first match at Kentucky, and even though some of our results haven't been where we would like them to be our mindsets and attitudes are definitely in the right place and we will definitely be ready come January 23.”

FALL SEASON STATISTICS

MATT GALUSH— CARY, NORTH CAROLINA

“I chose Penn State because I felt it was the best place for me to develop from all as-pects. First off I decided the Big Ten conference was the place for me. What really stood out was that the team, coaches, and school’s strengths strongly coincide with what I am looking to improve in the years to come. The team environment seems like the place for me to prosper substantially and make the most of my abilities. The team is extremely talented and the coaches have complimenting skills that make the most of their players in my opinion. And the results of the team directly show that. As far as the school is con-cerned, before I even got on campus up until right now, a multitude of people have come forward with connections to the school. Not a single one has ever said anything short of

incredible about the school and their experience there. am looking to study something along the lines of biochemistry and molecu-lar biology or biomedical engineering. The team is extremely talented and competitive and I know they along with the coaches will push me to improve drastically. I would like to find myself into the lineup for singles and/or doubles as soon as I can. Hopefully I can achieve that within the first couple years but I know that’s going to be extremely difficult with such a high caliber team. I would also like to continue to improve constantly throughout the calendar year all 4 years. I think that if I can do that, I will find myself in a good position to contribute for the team. My parents let me handle mostly everything during my recruiting process. When it came down to me making my decision, they were very pleased that the school I chose isn’t too far away (drivable) and that it’s a great school. Because my mom also came up to campus with me for my visit, she thought it was a good decision based off of what she observed from the campus and coaches. My parents are as confident as I am that great things will happen at Penn State and set me up well for anything after”.

OLIVER OTERO—COCONUT GROVE, FLORIDA

“I chose Penn State because it has an outstanding reputation in both athletics and academics. I wanted to be challenged and Penn State is certainly going do that for me. I would like to study either industrial or mechanical engineering. I visited the school last October and really fell in love with campus and environment. Everybody was so friendly, especially the team. I have nev-er been to a big time football game and it was amazing. My team goals are to make a differ-ence in the team’s performance. I know in time I will. I enjoy competing on indoor hard courts and my game is suited well for the surface. The team is very competitive and I know I am going to have to work hard in order to help them maintain their top ranking. I plan on elevating my fitness level and getting match ready. There are a lot of quality tournaments here in Florida and I will be able to train hard. Looking forward to a great 4 years at Penn State.”

WELCOME NEW RECRUITES CONTINUED

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would appreciate your support.

Go to www.GoPSUsports.com

and follow the link to Nittany Lion

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WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

WE WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE TOO! PLEASE SEND ME A PHOTO AND CURRENT LIFE

SITUATION. WE WILL FEATURE YOU IN OUR NEXT NEWSLETTER. WE ARE ALSO GOING TO

COMPILE AN ALUMNI DATABASE WITH CURRENT EMPLOYMENT RECRODS FOR ALL CUR-

RENT AND FUTURE PENN STATE PLAYERS.

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“Adjusting to life after college has been going pretty well so far, however the biggest change was not getting to see the guys and coaches who used to be apart of my daily life at Penn State.. Currently I am living between Qatar and Barcelona. Working out daily and still playing tennis has been my current routine. I've decided I wanted to take a year or so out without working in order to relax, travel and enjoy life after a tough tenure I had at Penn State getting my Architectural Engineering degree.”

“Life isn't quite as exciting without the thrill of col-lege matches and intensity of practices, but I've fo-cused more on my school work and job career. I'm still at Penn State right now earning my masters degree in accounting. I will be working for EY back home in Austin after I graduate”

PAST TENNIS ALUMNUS

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“Tennis has been apart of my life for so many years, so suddenly not having it is a big change. I miss being together with the guys, and just competing. I’ve tried to fill that focus that I used to have for tennis to working out in the gym and looking fit, strong and healthy! I am cur-rently completing my one year masters of accounting program at Penn State. I will begin my winter internship with EY in January, and will graduate in August.”

If you plan on coming to any of our home matches, please

contact me. You can join us on the court during the national

anthem. If you would like to plan a larger reunion, please con-

tact me to help arrange the event. We would love to have you

come and support YOUR TEAM!

2015 SPRING SCHEDULE

1/23-24/2015 Kentucky/S. Florida/Vanderbilt Lexington, Ky. 11:00 p.m. ET

2/1/2015 vs. Penn University Park, Pa. 9:00 a.m. ET

vs. Temple University Park, Pa. 1:00 p.m. ET

vs. James Madison University Park, Pa. 5:00 p.m. ET

2/7/2015 at Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Va. 1:00 p.m. ET

2/14/2015 vs. Georgetown University Park, Pa. 12:00 p.m. ET

vs. Cleveland State University Park, Pa. 5:00 p.m. ET

2/21/2015 at Cornell Ithica, N.Y. 2:00 p.m. ET

2/27/2015 vs. Ohio State * University Park, Pa. 3:00 p.m. ET

2/28/2015 vs. Princeton University Park, Pa. 12:00 p.m. ET

3/7/2015 at VCU Richmond, Va. 11:00 p.m. ET

3/13/2015 USF Tournament Tampa, Fla. TBA

3/14/2015 USF Tournament Tampa, Fla. TBA

3/15/2015 USF Tournament Tampa, Fla. TBA

3/20/2015 at Michigan State * East Lansing, Mich. 4:00 p.m. ET

3/22/2015 vs. Michigan * University Park, Pa. 12:00 p.m. ET

vs. Wagner University Park, Pa. 6:00 p.m. ET

3/27/2015 at Illinois * Champaign, Ill. 3:00 p.m. ET

3/29/2015 at Northwestern * Evanston, Ill. 12:00 p.m. ET

4/3/2015 vs. Wisconsin * University Park, Pa. 4:00 p.m. ET

4/5/2015 vs. Minnesota * University Park, Pa. 12:00 p.m. ET

4/10/2015 vs. Purdue * University Park, Pa. 3:00 p.m. ET

4/12/2015 vs. Indiana * University Park, Pa. 12:00 p.m. ET

4/17/2015 at Nebraska * Lincoln, Neb. 4:00 p.m. ET

4/19/2015 at Iowa * Iowa City, Iowa 12:00 p.m. ET

Big Ten Tournament

4/23/2015 Big Ten Tournament Champaign, Ill. TBA

4/24/2015 Big Ten Tournament Champaign, Ill. TBA

4/25/2015 Big Ten Tournament Champaign, Ill. TBA

4/26/2015 Big Ten Tournament Champaign, Ill. TBA