Alejandra Guerra
How does the top seed on the women's tennis team go through the SoCon spring schedule with a perfect singles record?
Alejandra Guerra, a rising senior, smiles as she's reminded of that feat. But aside from technique and conditioning, what about the focus and mental approach needed to do that?
“I never really get nervous … I do get frustrated. I struggle when I'm not playing my best tennis.”
She continues. “In tennis, there's not going to be a time when you're playing your best tennis every single match.”
In an April match she was down 5-3 in the first set. “I thought, ‘I'm not losing this match. Because throughout this semester, I've been doing pretty good.’” She adds, “You have to stay mentally strong.”
Coach Jeff Trivette '92, '94 MA, who has a master's in sport psychology, talks about her mental game.
“She has lots of fun. She enjoys the game,” he says, noting the looseness she shows on the courts. “She knows she can win — so she relaxes. It's a unique approach.”
It provides unique results. Ale finished out the season with 17 straight wins, for a school-record 27-5 on the season, including 18-2 during the spring. The team finished the spring season at 12-10, 6-3 in the conference. Ale was named the SoCon Women's Tennis Player of the Year — the first UNCG women's tennis player to earn Conference Player of the Year honors since Jenny Gonzalez did so in the Big South in 1997.
“She enjoys being in the moment,” Trivette says. “She's a shot maker.”
Thirty-five attempts to steal a base. Thirty-five successful steals.
That's how Mary Greenway started the season. That's speed you'd like to see in every lead-off softball player.
But before you can steal, you have to get on base.
For senior Mary Greenway, it means you start running even before you hit the ball.
It's called slap hitting. Hitting as a lefty — from the batter's box closest to first base — you slap a grounder toward the opposite side of the field as you've already started your dash to first.
How did a player who throws right-handed learn to do this?
It started in high school, her junior year. She was fast on the bases, but not a great hitter. As she tells it, her coaches turned her around in the batter's boxes real quick.
“My assistant coach in high school taught me [to slap hit]. She took me under her wing.” She'd done the same thing when she was a player.
It felt very uncomfortable at first. But by the time she was a senior, she had the hang of it. In the time a third base player or shortstop could field the ball, she'd be well on her way to first. She'd found a way to get on base more often, where she could then use her speed to steal bases and score more runs.
Before graduating from UNCG, the business major was all business on the diamond. She led the team in batting average and total runs. And she finished third nationally in number of steals.
For Todd Lewis '89, “Golf's Home” is where the heart is.
Lewis is the newest broadcaster on The Golf Channel, seen by 90 million viewers.
The Reidsville native earned his degree in speech communication and a minor in broadcasting and cinema at UNCG. “The thing I remember most is the wonderful job UNCG did with student life. I wasn't coddled, but required to grow up like any freshman. UNCG allowed me to ID who I was and where I was going.”
After graduation Lewis got a job at nearby WXII in Winston-Salem. He has also worked at Wilmington, Spokane, Wash., and Raleigh. He landed at CBS affiliate KXLY in Orlando in 1999, where he was a sports fixture until he landed the new job last December.
“I had made some contacts with The Golf Channel, and they asked me to do some freelance work,” Lewis said. “They must have been satisfied that I could do the job because they asked me to come on board. It's a great job — I get to cover the world's greatest tour and get to travel. The PGA Tour has stops in some really nice places.”
Although he's interviewed some of golf's stars, including Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, his favorite moment thus far was a quick, on-the-fly interview with actor Morgan Freeman at the Michael Douglas Celebrity Pro-Am.
“He was hitting some practice balls and I needed to ask him a couple of questions — when one of the tournament officials rushed up to drag him away to his tee time,” said Lewis. “The man was really insistent, but he told the official, in that Morgan Freeman voice, ‘For goodness sake, man, let him get one question in.’
“So my question was, ‘Mr. Freeman, if your golf game was a movie script, what would it be?’ He laughed and told me, ‘It started out as a horror movie, but it's moved up to a comedy — I've only been playing a little more than a year.’ It was a great story and he could not have been nicer.”
Lewis will return to North Carolina Aug. 14-17 to broadcast the Wyndham Championship when Greensboro's own PGA tournament returns to Sedgefield Country Club.
When UNCG played softball's Team USA as part of the pre-Olympics national tour, the Spartan stadium tripled its normal capacity. Senior Mary Greenway summed up the experience in one word: “Amazing.”
Freshman Anthony Savoia set a school record in the 3000 meter steeplechase. Senior Jess Weber set a school record in the 800 meters. She posted a perfect 4.0 GPA and was one of 12 Spartan athletes named to the SoCon Academic All-Conference Team for the winter season.
Dr. Richard Beavers received a SoCon Distinguished Service Award. He has served on the Spartan Club Executive Committee since 1994 and was chair in 2004-05 and 2005-06.
Senior designated hitter Greg Feltes earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District Three First Team honors. The finance major held a 3.44 GPA and tallied 200th career hit in April, the second Spartan to do so. Ryan Gordon '04 was the first. In the SoCon tournament, Feltes hit grand slam homers on consecutive days. Perhaps not surprisingly, he holds the Spartan career record in being hit by pitches.