IRVINE, Calif. – Hawai`i Hilo women’s tennis finished up its trip to northern California, while the southern California schools took care of business against Western New Mexico to highlight another last week’s results in PacWest tennis.
 
The PacWest Players of the Week are Sofia Ragona from Academy of Art and Yassine Smiej from Concordia after the two No. 1 players for their teams each led them to victories.
 
Academy of Art and Fresno Pacific both earned shutout wins against Hawai`i Hilo in women’s tennis to bolster their records against NCAA Division II opponents. For Academy of Art, it was a statement 7-0 win with only two sets lost in the match against a nationally-ranked opponent. Nicole Shiau continued her strong start to the season with a 6-1, 6-1 win at No. 3 singles.
 
Fresno Pacific won its match against Hawai`i Hilo 4-0 and Lea Falentin remained undefeated in singles against PacWest opponents this season without dropping a single set as she won 6-3, 6-0.
 
PacWest teams all went undefeated for the week in matches against visiting Western New Mexico with Biola, Azusa Pacific, Concordia and Point Loma all winning in the form of clean sweeps.
 
This will be a big week for MSU Denver, which will get its first matches against PacWest opponents since joining the league apart from one women’s tennis match earlier in the season. The Roadrunners will make their way through Southern California with four matches in four days.
 
Weekly awards for the week of March 15-21
 
MEN’S TENNIS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Yassine Smiej, Concordia
Jr. – Rabat, Morrocco
Smiej went undefeated for the week as he improved to 6-1 in singles and 7-2 in doubles alongside Mike Jansen, while playing in the No. 1 spot for both singles and doubles. Smiej has claimed four wins against No. 1 singles players in the PacWest, establishing himself as one of the conference’s toughest players to beat. He added straight-set wins against Western New Mexico and Cal Lutheran last week in singles. In doubles, he came through with a tough 8-6 win just a few days after cruising to a 6-1 victory over Western New Mexico. Concordia now has a 5-5 record this season with five matches against nationally-ranked opponents.
 
WOMEN’S TENNIS PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Sofia Ragona, Academy of Art
So. – Turin, Italy
Ragona continued her strong start to her sophomore season with a pair of wins in both singles and doubles without dropping a set all week. Ragona stared the week with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Hawai`i Hilo’s Sandra Dafinescu and also won 6-3 in doubles with Shiau. The pairing then beat NCAA Division I opponents when they took on Nevada and won, 6-1. Ragona added another win over a D1 opponent with a 6-2, 6-1 triumph in singles to improve to 4-2 on the season. The sophomore is also 3-1 against her fellow PacWest No. 1 singles players.
 

PREVIOUS PACWEST PLAYERS OF THE WEEK
DATE	MEN	WOMEN
Feb. 16	Martin Soukal, UHH	Halle Romero, CMU
Feb. 23	Yassine Smiej, CUI	Amanda Letzring, PLNU
March 2	Isaac Cordova, BU	Mariia Borodii, FPU
March 9	Jakob Schnaitter, APU	Lilly McNeil, BU
March 16	Jandre van Wyk	Petra Ivankovic
March 23	Yassine Smiej, CUI	Sofia Ragona, ART U