UA crushes ASU on Senior Day in McKale

UA 106 ð ASU 81

Fil Torres may have saved his best for last.

On an afternoon when the Arizona men's basketball team honored its seniors, Torres and the Wildcats routed rival Arizona State, 106-81 in McKale Center.

With 2:06 left to play and No. 22 Arizona (19-8, 11-7 Pacific 10 Conference) holding a commanding 22-point lead over the Sun Devils, Torres pulled up from behind the 3-point arc and buried a trey to send the 14,587 in attendance into a frenzy. [Read article]

Senior scores 24 in hometown return

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Aimee Grzyb saved her best performances for home.

In front of dozens of family and friends, the UA senior guard set new personal bests with a career-high six 3-pointers - a Pac-10 Tournament record - and 24 points Saturday in the Wildcat women's hoops team's 81-58 rout of No. 7 seed Oregon State.

The San Jose, Calif., native hit four more treys and scored 14 in Arizona's 77-55 trouncing of No. 6 seed Washington yesterday in San Jose's HP Pavilion. [Read article]

The UA softball team kept its perfect record intact during this weekend's Hillenbrand Invitational, thanks in part to a perfect game.

Sophomore Alicia Hollowell struck out 20 Hoosiers to seal her first collegiate perfect game Saturday, one week after narrowly missing the accomplishment.

Yesterday afternoon, after a scare in the fifth inning, the Wildcats (25-0) defeated Texas-El Paso 14-6 in six innings. [Read article]

It was the near-perfect ending to an anything but perfect regular season for the Arizona men's basketball team.

Senior reserves Jason Ranne and Fil Torres received their proper send-offs, taking the floor in McKale Center for the final time as Wildcats. The nation's highest-scoring offense put up 106 points, while the struggling defense used a full-court press to stifle Arizona State time and again. [Read article]

Early last week, Kevin Guyette learned that he had lost his Saturday starting spot and might be taken out of the rotation all together.

Yesterday, UA baseball head coach Andy Lopez stuck with Guyette, starting him in the series rubber match against Sacramento State.

It paid off.

Guyette threw 6.2 innings of one-run ball in earning the 11-6 win for No. 16 Arizona (9-6-1) and completing the series win for the Wildcats over the Hornets (11-11). [Read article]

SAN JOSE, Calif - Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer saw a rematch with Arizona coming months ago.

"There will be a rubber match. We'll meet again," said VanDerveer, after Arizona's 88-83 win over Stanford Feb. 5 in McKale Center.

With a season rubber match looming in the Pacific 10 Conference Tournament tonight at 8:30 MST in San Jose, Calif., the Cardinal coach echoed her previous statement.

"I felt that we would play Arizona again," said VanDerveer after Stanford's win over UCLA last night. "I really feel that through the season, we have demonstrated that we're the top two teams (in the conference), and it's great that we're playing for the championship. [Read article]

The scores continued to soar for the Arizona gymnastics team Friday night in Gainesville, Fla., against the Gators. The wins, however, remained elusive.

No. 7 Florida registered the highest score in Gator history with the 198.025-196.65 win over No. 9 Arizona in front of 1,536 people in the O'Connell Center.

"It's kind of interesting - these people keep having these amazing meets against us," Arizona head coach Bill Ryden said about Florida's record-breaking night. "We're headed in the right direction. We're focused on coming down the stretch." [Read article]

The UA men's swimming and diving team finished third in the Pacific 10 Conference Championships, which concluded Saturday in Long Beach, Calif.

Arizona's team score of 522.5 edged Southern California (505) for third. Stanford won the meet with a score of 866.50, while California finished second at 773.

The Wildcats notched 24 NCAA consideration times and three automatic times in the meet. Senior Juan Veloz took second in the 200 butterfly with an NCAA automatic time of 1:44.37. The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Lyndon Ferns, Eric la Fleur, Simon Burnett and Byron Jeffers also took second, posting another of the automatic times. [Read article]

The Arizona men's tennis team sent No. 31 San Diego packing Sunday afternoon, posting a 6-1 win to improve its record to 8-4.

The Toreros (5-3) put up a fight early only to be blown out in the end. USD won only one singles match and one doubles match.

"We wanted to send them home packing with a big bang," said senior captain Tom Lloyd. "Those guys were talking pretty big this year, and we took it to them." [Read article]

The Arizona women's tennis team had no answers for No. 9 California and No. 1 Stanford this weekend at home, falling 6-1 in each match.

"Both of them were very tough opponents," said assistant coach Petar Danolic. "We could have done better against California because we matched up well against them. We had our chances, but we couldn't convert in doubles first, and then the singles matches."

Junior Maja Mlakar, playing on court one for the second and third times this year, fell to Raquel Kops-Jones of Cal (6-4, 7-6) and Stanford's Amber Liu (6-0, 6-1). Liu's dominating serve drew some, "Wow, she's good," comments from the Arizona men's tennis team, which watched from the stands. The No. 61 Liu forced Mlakar into unforced errors to earn the straight-set win. [Read article]

For the UA men's rugby team, good things finally came in pairs again at Estevan Park this weekend.

Arizona held off a late UCLA rally to win 34-29 Sunday and, after Friday's 29-20 victory over Cal State Long Beach, complete its first home sweep since the Memorial Invitational Tournament last November.

After opening up a 20-0 lead ten minutes into the game, Arizona's wheels came off in the second half. Capitalizing on sloppy play by the Wildcats, UCLA roared back to take a 29-27 lead on a try by Sean McGuire. [Read article]

The Arizona track and field teams eagerly began the outdoor season on Saturday at the first annual Wildcat Classic.

The non-scoring event featured Central Arizona College and University of Louisville, along with several club teams. Though the competition was less than intense, the Wildcats walked away with nine Pacific 10 Conference and nine NCAA Regional qualifying performances.

"This event was not designed to be a high-powered competition but (was an opportunity) to get things accomplished from a training standpoint," said UA head coach Fred Harvey. [Read article]

After the Laxcats took a 4-3 lead into halftime and scored four goals in the fourth period Sunday, it would seem like the UA was well on its way to a upset over No. 2 Santa Barbara.

Unfortunately for Arizona, there was a third quarter in between.

A late charge fell short for the Laxcats, who were unable to overcome a seven-goal third period by the Gauchos in a 9-8 loss at Murphy Stadium.

With just under four minutes to go, sophomore attackman Adam Paris scored his fourth goal for Arizona, which entered the final period facing a 9-4 deficit. [Read article]