Rebel women advance

Friday, April 26, 2002 | 10 a.m.

PROVO, Utah -- The 19th-ranked UNLV women's tennis team got revenge for being on the wrong end of a first-round upset in last year's Mountain West Conference championship by shutting out Colorado State 4-0 to advance Thursday at the BYU Tennis Center.

The second-seeded Lady Rebels improved to 18-3 overall and 7-1 in the league. The seventh-seeded Rams fell to 6-17 and 1-7.

CSU had beaten UNLV 4-2 in the first round of last year's event.

The Lady Rebels opened the day by taking the two completed doubles matches for one team point. Winning were the teams of Paulina Janus and Agnieszka Abram at No. 1 and Tracie Chong and Leentjie Oosthuizen at No. 3.

In singles play, UNLV got three straight-set wins to end it. Janus, ranked 91st, swept Sanja Hansson 6-2, 6-3 at the top spot. Gyorgyi Zsiros, ranked 94th, cruised past Amanda Bartz 6-0, 6-1 at No. 2, and Oosthuizen won 6-2, 6-3 over Dasha Zhurin on the fifth court to clinch it.

UNLV face New Mexico today. The 55th-ranked Lobos defeated Air Force 4-1 in the first round. In their regular-season meeting, the Lady Rebels defeated UNM 4-3 on April 7.

Also, top-seeded San Diego State shut out Wyoming and BYU whitewashed Utah. The Aztecs and Cougars will face off in today's other semi.

The Utes, seeded fourth, improved to 15-10 and 3-3 in the league while the fifth-seeded Rebels fell to 9-12 and 2-4.

The Utes advance to play top seed San Diego State while today's other semifinal will pit New Mexico against BYU. UNLV and Air Force will play for fifth place.