The No. 6 men’s tennis team continued its winning ways Wednesday with a 6-1 victory over UCSB at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
It was the Bruins’ eighth win in their first nine matches of the season, with the lone loss coming last weekend in Seattle against top-ranked Virginia.
So far this season UCLA has played well above expectations and already has wins against two ranked teams, No. 12 Notre Dame and No. 15 Oklahoma State.
Things went smoothly on Wednesday as well. The Bruins won all three of the doubles matches and then took five of six of the singles contests to seal a victory.
Harel Srugo held his own on the No. 1 court with a 6-4 6-3 defeated of UCSB’s Bijan Hejazi. The Bruins also got singles victories from Holden Seguso, Mathieu Dehaine, Michael Look and Ahmed Ismail. All five of those wins came in straight sets.
The win is significant for freshman Ismail, who is from Cairo, Egypt. It is his first ever singles victory in a dual match.
The only blemish on the day for the Bruins was Jeremy Drean’s loss to Gaucho Josh Finkelstein. Drean lost the first set 1-6, but battled back to win the second set 6-2. The final set was the closest of the match, but Finkelstein eventually claimed the set and match.
Next up for the Bruins doubles players is the Pacific Coast Doubles Championships in La Jolla, starting Friday. Their next dual match is next Wednesday, March 5 against Rice at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
WOMEN’S GOLF SLIPS: The top-ranked women’s golf team struggled this week at the Wildcat Invitational in Tucson, Ariz.
The Bruins finished in sixth place with a total team score of 52-over-par. The poor finish was a result of a terrible outing Tuesday in the tournament’s second round when the team shot a 37-over par score of 321.
This is the team’s first loss since October when they finished third in the Stanford/Pepsi Invitational.
No. 15 Oklahoma State won the event with a team score of 32-over par, 20 strokes better than UCLA. No. 2 Duke and No. 4 USC finished tied for second place at 34-over par.
Duke’s Amanda Blumenherst won the individual event with a 54-hole score of 213 (2-over par). UCLA’s Tiffany Joh finished in fifth, seven strokes behind Blumenherst.
FLORES CLAIMS FIRST WIN: Junior Erik Flores won his collegiate tournament Tuesday at the Cal State Bakersfield Spring Invitational. He finished the tournament at 10-under par.
Flores was competing with the blue team, the Bruins’ second-tier team. The team finished in second place at 16-under par. Cal State Stanislaus won the event with a total score of 17-under par.
JOSEPH WINS SCHOLARSHIP: The NCAA awarded a postgraduate scholarship to former UCLA center Chris Joseph on Wednesday.
Joseph was one of 58 athletes to earn the scholarship of $7,500. Joseph has a 3.95 GPA as a geography student. He has been honored for his academic achievements in the past as a member of the Academic All-America teams in 2006 and 2007.
With the announcement Joseph became the 63rd UCLA athlete and 17th football player to earn the prestigious scholarship.
Compiled by Sam Allen, Bruin Sports senior staff.