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UT-Arlington, which is ranked higher than Rice, beat Texas Tech University last week, and also earned a recent victory over Columbia University, who made the National Indoor Championships.

"It was a really good win for us, especially after losing two last week in Louisiana," sophomore Efe Ustundag said.

Ustundag led the team with some good wins himself, upsetting UT-Arlington's Christian Jaeger, currently ranked No. 51 by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, in a knock-down-drag-out 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) victory.

In doubles, Ustundag paired with junior Darin Mast for another upset victory over UT-Arlington's 45th-ranked team of Christian Jaeger and Christoph Kull at the top doubles spot.

In another match, Mast and Ustundag trounced the UT-Arlington team by a whopping 8-2 margin.

"The guys were a lot more disciplined this week," Coach Shaheen Ladhani said. He pointed in particular to Mast's performance. Mast occupied the No. 4 singles spot for the Owls.

"Darin played an unbelievably clutch match," Ladhani said.

Ustundag agreed. "He really stepped it up. We started off strong by winning the doubles point, and then Darin's win sealed the match for us," Ustundag said.

Mast came through to win his match by the tight score of 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 over UT-Arlington's Ruben Soto.

But Ladhani and Ustundag pointed out that the entire team came together for a win.

"We were really counting on the bottom of the lineup, because we knew that [UT-Arlington] had really tough No. 1 and No. 2 players," Ustundag said.

And it seems that Ustundag was not counting his chickens before they hatched, either. In the No. 3 singles spot, senior Rico Jacober beat opponent Ameya Chandavarker in a no-sweat 6-2, 6-2 victory.

Sophomore Sasha Silver won with even more ease in the No. 5 singles spot, downing his opponent, Roberto Coronado, in a 6-1, 6-0 drudging.

Though not victorious in the No. 2 and No. 6 spots, respectively, junior Naisohn Arfai and freshman Kevin Hargrove both took their opponents to three close sets.

In doubles play, it was the win of sophomores Jason Felton and Rico Jacober in the No. 3 spot combined with the Mast-Ustundag victory which scored the doubles point for the Owls. Felton and Jacober pulled out a skin-of-their-teeth 9-7 win over the team of Mattias Lattson and Kyle Wood.

The win came in the wake of a disappointing weekend for the Owls, during which they lost to Southwestern Louisiana University 6-1 and to Northeast Louisiana University by a heart-breaking 4-3 margin in tournament play in Lafayette.

Ustundag scored the sole singles victory for the Owls against Southwestern Louisiana, scoring a bagel-fest 6-0, 6-0 victory against opponent David Rodriguez.

Ustundag was also victorious in doubles, pairing with teammate Mast for an 8-4 win in the No. 1 doubles spot.

Ladhani said that scheduling "was a large part" of the Owls' lackluster performance. After all, the Owls' came into the tournament after a five-match winning streak.

"The guys were tired, and to keep up the same intensity was difficult to do," Ladhani said. "Sometimes recovering from success is just as difficult a recovering from a failure."

Still, Ladhani noted, the Owls picked themselves up and dusted themselves off and nearly pulled out a win against Northeast Louisiana. Winners in the Northeast Louisiana match were Ustundag in the No. 1 singles spot and Jacober in the No. 4 singles spot.

The Owls scored the doubles point thanks to victories by the teams of Ustundag-Mast in the No.1 doubles spot and Arfai and Silver in the No. 2 doubles spot.

But if Tuesday's match against UT-Arlington is any indication, the Owls seem to be in top form.

This weekend the Owls face the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Columbia and Wichita State University as they host the 36th annual Rice Invitational March 20-23 at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the March 21, 1997 issue.