Senior finishes Pac-10 play on top

Talk about going out with a bang.

In her final Pac-10 match, senior Riza Zalameda defeated USC’s Amanda Fink 6-3, 6-4 to win the Pac-10 Singles title in Ojai. Zalameda is the first Bruin to win the Pac-10 Singles Championship since Sara Walker captured the title in 2000.

“This is definitely one of my top achievements,” Zalameda said. “It’s my senior year, and I wanted to go out with a bang.”

Zalameda was hardly the favorite ““ she had lost to Fink 5-7, 7-6(4), (10-8) in a grueling matchup on April 18, during the Bruins’ last meet of the 2008 season.

“I was more prepared in this match,” Zalameda said. “The last match I didn’t know how Amanda was playing. I think I was more focused this last time.”

The win over Fink was Zalameda’s fifth of a very busy weekend. Her first match against Arizona State’s Laila Abdala was the only match in which she dropped a set. Zalameda dropped the first set 1-6 before rallying to a 1-6, 7-5, 6-0 victory.

From there, Zalameda went on to beat Stanford’s Lindsay Burdette, USC’s Gabriela Niculescu in the quarterfinals and California’s Claire Ilcinkas in the semifinals.

Zalameda indicated she can maintain this momentum throughout next month’s NCAA Tournament.

“I wouldn’t say that I peaked, right now I’m just working up that ladder,” she said. “This is definitely a confidence booster.”

Zalameda wasn’t the only Bruin veteran to finish her Pac-10 career on the highest of notes.

Redshirt senior Alex McGoodwin won two titles during the weekend. She first took the invitational singles title and then teamed with freshman Andrea Remynse to win the invitational doubles title.

McGoodwin topped Arizona State’s Wendy Pilecka 7-6(7), 6-1 to win the singles title. Then she and Remynse handled Cal’s Rachael Dillon and Daron Moore 8-1 to win the doubles title.

The No. 5 Bruins can now shift their focus to the NCAA Championships, where they will certainly be a top contender. Last season, UCLA completed a surprising run to the NCAA Championship match before losing to Georgia Tech.

The NCAA will announce seedings for the tournament today.

“We can do what we did last year and even do better,” Zalameda said. “Now it’s like if we don’t reach the finals, we’re failing.”

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