Bubbly Ortman leads on and off the courts

It's been a rollercoaster year for Kristen Ortman. The senior captain of the women's tennis team has had outstanding play on the courts, but to say she has had a rough year in her personal life would be an understatement.

Ortman stands a little over five-feet-tall but her play during her four years with the Bulls has been big, including her serve, which has been clocked as high as 97 miles per hour.

Ortman, who hails from Amherst and can see South Campus from her bedroom, has been playing tennis since the age of 7 in Buffalo. She has helped lead the women's tennis team this year to its best ever overall record in years at 14-4, broke the overall singles win record at Buffalo, and put the team near the top of the brackets in the Mid-American Conference.

"My biggest influence overall has been my dad," Ortman said. "He has always been there and has been a great role model. He's always like 'Do your best and you will get the best outcome.' "

The outcome for Ortman has been an astounding 59 singles victories while at Buffalo and countless awards. Her biggest achievement came during the 2003-2004 season when she was named Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar-Athlete.

"My game has progressively gotten better since attending Buffalo," Ortman said. "The biggest part of my game that has improved has been the mental aspect."

Earlier this month, Ortman was stunned when her mom suddenly passed away. The team was preparing for a match against Akron when Ortman was given the news from her father and the match was cancelled.

Ortman returned slowly to the lineup just shy of two weeks after the passing of her mother.

"I have been getting better and have started to settle in but playing tennis has been challenging because you are out on the court all by yourself and when you try to focus it's hard," Ortman said. "But tennis has also been a big relief."

"Kristen has more courage than most people," said head coach Kathy Twist. "She is a great captain and a great leader."

Ortman has not only been stellar at singles play during her career at Buffalo but has also been an outstanding doubles player. This year, Ortman and her favorite doubles player junior Miglena Nenova have combined for a record of 7-2 and 37-17 overall the last past three seasons. The best year for the tandem came 2003-2004 when they went 17-8 overall and 6-1 in tournament victories.

"I love playing doubles with Maggie (Nenova) because we are both so goofy and sometimes during practice that gets us into trouble," Ortman said. "Sometimes when we are hitting and we will make little squeaks when we hit and it makes us laugh and it's so funny."

An inspirational person during Ortman's career at Buffalo has been her coach.

"She knows what she's doing and has really made the team great these past few years," Ortman said of Twist.

"Our pre-game warm-ups are always real early because Coach Twist wants us to have a lot of time to warm up and we always do the same thing before every game," Ortman added. "It's repetitive but the warm up works and my favorite part about them is that we all get to eat together before the match."

Ortman's humor doesn't end during practice but carries on into her everyday activities. She loves joking around on the long bus rides in which her and Nenova talk about random things. She loves fish fries and cannot go without one on a Friday night. When her Ipod is in hand, she is usually jamming out to Nickelback and Akon.

Next week will be the end of Ortman's stand as a student-athlete at Buffalo as she will cross the stage with thousands of other students and receive her diploma in elementary education.

"It has been amazing to be on a team that has grown so far," Ortman said. "It's been nice because I like to win and that's what we have done."

Ortman will continue her career next year on the bench for the Bulls as she will take over as the assistant coaching job for the women's tennis team.

This weekend the Bulls and Ortman look to add one award that has eluded the Bulls all four years of her career and that is the MAC Championship. Ortman heads into the MAC tournament this weekend in Oxford, Ohio as the MAC Co-Player of the Week.