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Women's Tennis To Face Mississippi State Saturday

Lady Rebels have won 16 straight in the series.

April 12, 2006

OXFORD, Miss. - The Ole Miss women's tennis team will conclude the regular season Saturday as they take on arch-rival Mississippi State at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre in Starkville. First serve is 1 p.m.

Ole Miss (10-8, 3-7) moved up to No. 49 in the latest Fila ITA National Rankings after their win over No. 27 Tennessee last weekend. The Lady Rebels continue to be led by freshman Kseniia Tokarieva, who owns a 29-7 combined dual match record in singles and doubles. Last weekend, she played No. 1 singles for the first time and split her matches, defeating Tennessee's Melissa Schaub to clinch the team victory. Tokarieva enters the final regular season match at 7-3 in the SEC.

"Whenever you play Mississippi State in anything, you can throw out the records," head coach Mark Beyers said. "We know they will fight hard because we have a nice win streak going against them. We want to play well and obviously carry some momentum into the SEC Championships next weekend."

Mississippi State comes into the match at 3-14 overall and 1-9 in the SEC. They lost both their matches last weekend, falling to Georgia and Tennessee. State, losers of seven in a row, played with only five players this past weekend. In the absence of their No. 1 player, Anastasia Kugokolova, Lady Bulldog Renee' Joseph played No. 1 for MSU.

Ole Miss owns a 16-match winning streak against Mississippi State. The Bulldogs last win in the series came in 1989, a 7-2 victory in Oxford. Since then, Ole Miss has dominated the series, with convincing wins each year. Last year, the Lady Rebels downed MSU 6-1 in Oxford to clinch a share of the SEC Western Division Championship.

Following their last regular season match the Lady Rebels will head to Gainesville, Fla., next weekend for the SEC Tournament.