Men's swim sits in 12th at NCAAs

The Arizona men's swimming and diving squad made the most of its limited opportunities on the first day of the 2003 NCAA Championships from the Jamail Swim Center on campus at Texas.

Despite having only two athletes and one relay in the evening finals, Arizona sits in 12th place with a score of 41 points.

The Wildcats made the best of their only eligible relay by finishing fourth in the first event of yesterday evening's action. Freshman Lyndon Ferns began the race with a 19.80, he was followed by junior Eric la Fleur, freshman Simon Burnett and junior Luis Rojas who combined to swim a 1:18.28, bettering their season top time in this event, set earlier in the day.

Arizona's group of Burnett, junior Greg Owen and la Fleur concluded yesterday's preliminaries by being disqualified in the 400-yard medley relay, their time of 3:11.38 would have placed them sixth in the championship final.

The Wildcats return to competition tomorrow morning with preliminaries at 10 a.m., followed by finals at 7 p.m. Tomorrow will be the busiest day of the meet, as eight events are to be contested.

Warren named to All-Academic Team

UA women's basketball player Krista Warren was named second-team Academic All-Pac-10, yesterday.

The senior forward has a 3.38 cumulative grade point average while majoring in studio art with a minor in religious studies.

Warren received this accolade after being named honorable mention Academic All-Pac-10 team for the previous two years. She also earned third-team Verizon Academic All-District VIII honors this season.

Warren was one of only two players to start all 31 games for the Wildcats this year and posted averages of 11.9 points and 7.2 rebounds per game.

Tough roads ahead for UA tennis teams

UA men's tennis will have their work cut out for them this weekend when the Wildcats end a three-week hiatus facing off against two formidable Pac-10 foes.

Arizona will open conference play this weekend, hosting Pac-10 rivals No. 3 UCLA and no. 19 Southern California. Despite being idle for nearly three weeks, the Wildcats jumped five spots up to No. 46 in the most recent ITA rankings.

Earlier this month in the Wildcats' last match, Arizona dropped two games to another pair of California powerhouses, Stanford and California. The 5-6, (0-0 Pac-10) Wildcats were swept earlier this season by the Bruins (7-0) and Trojans (6-1) during a California road trip Feb. 14 and 15.

The women's tennis squad of the UA will travel to southern California this weekend to take on two of the Pac-10's elite.

No. 12 UCLA on Friday and no. 4 Southern California on Saturday will make life tough for an Arizona squad searching for its first Pac-10 win. The Wildcats, 5-7 on the season and 0-6 in Pac-10 play, are coming off of a loss to conference rival Arizona State on Wednesday.

On February 21 the Wildcats were blanked by the Trojans 7-0 in Tucson. Two days later Arizona rebounded strong but fell short to the Bruins 4-3.

After a trip to Washington State and Washington next weekend the Wildcats will return home to face the Longhorns of the University of Texas on April 8.