Sidelines

Fork in the road

This past weekend, the men's tennis team earned a split on the road, falling to national powerhouse Western Michigan and defeating Xavier, another highly regarded program.

The 5-2 Broncos quickly showed why the road to Mid-American Conference supremacy goes through Kalamazoo, as they trampled the Bulls 7-0, sweeping all the matches. The one bright spot for Buffalo on the otherwise bleak day was the play of Mike Rockman and Josh Liederman, who gave their opponents all they could handle before falling 6-3, 6-4 to WMU's Jose Orozco and Jeff French.

Despite having fallen to Western Michigan two days prior, the resilient Bulls came back strong Sunday and defeated Xavier in dramatic fashion, 4-3. The players who played the biggest parts in Buffalo's win were the number three doubles tandem of Matt Kennedy and Albert Alant, who stopped Xavier's duo of Rustin Reys and Adam Schaefer. Other key contributors to the Bulls' cause were Nick Zieziula, Mike Rockman and Yules Hadisbroto, who keyed UB's three singles victories.

The Bulls are now 1-4 overall on the early spring season and will swing into this weekend when they take on Army.

Alant, Burton honored

UB's male and female Athletes of the Week are Albert Alant of the men's tennis team and Ashlee Burton of the women's swimming and diving team.

Burton not only broke her own school record in the one-meter diving event in a double-dual meet at Bowling Green on Friday, she also became the first member of UB's women's swimming and diving team to score over 300 points in a dual meet. Burton's former best was 275.25 points, but on Friday she notched 302.9 points for six dives.

Alant, of the men's tennis team, was victorious in the deciding match of the Bulls' 4-3 victory on Sunday against the Xavier Musketeers. He scored a 7-5, 6-3 win over Xavier's Brian Quinn. Alant was also successful in his doubles match as well, with his partner Matt Kennedy. Playing at sixth singles this season, Alant has been able to post a 2-1 record in dual play.