Horned Frog Sports Roundup: Feb. 9, 2023

Men’s Tennis: The Frogs hit the road for a slew of tough match ups against top 25 opponents this past week in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Baylor. TCU traveled to Knoxville last Thursday and secured a convincing win over the 10th ranked Volunteers by a score of 4-1. The doubles dominance for TCU continued as TCU secured the doubles point behind a 6-3 win from the third pairing in Sebastian Gorzny and Pedro Vives and a come from behind win from the second pairing, Luc Fomba and Jake Fearnley, 7-5. Sander Jong and Lui Maxted suffered their first loss in doubles of the season against a tough top pairing from Tennessee, 6-3. The Frogs got off to a hot start in the singles matches, winning 5 first sets over their Tennessee opponents. Tomas Jirousek, Jong, and Gorzny were all able to complete the sweep in their next set and secure the win for the Frogs. Fomba was tied at 5-5 in the second set of his match after winning the first set and Maxted was on set 3 after splitting the first two when TCU secured the match clinching point. The schedule did not get any easier from there as a match with number 14 ranked North Carolina in Chapel Hill was next for TCU. The Frogs were once again able to win the doubles point thanks to victories from the second and third pairings in Fearnley and Fomba and Vives and Gorzny respectively. Fearnley and Fomba won their match a bit more convincingly this time though as they continued their undefeated doubles run with a 6-4 win over their Tar Heel counterparts. Jong and Maxted suffered their second straight upset loss also by a score of 6-4 to the top Tar Heel pairing. Both Fomba and Maxted continued their undefeated season in singles matches against UNC. Fomba won in straight sets while Maxted climbed back after losing the first set to clinch the come from behind victory for the Frogs who had fallen behind 3-2 at one point. Gorzny was the other singles winner for TCU with a straight sets on court 6. After the thrilling victory over North Carolina, the Frogs made the trip south to Waco to face the Bears. Once again, TCU was able to secure the doubles point behind wins from Fomba and Fearnley, who were eleveated to the top doubles pairing against Baylor, and Gorzny and Vives. Gorzny and Vives had been dominant in the third pairing slot and the match against Baylor was no different as they won by a convincing margin of 6-1. Fearnley and Fomba had a closer match but prevailed 7-5 in the end. Jake Fearnley got the Frogs started quickly in the singles matches as he took down the top singles player for the Bears in straight sets. Luc Fomba has been incredible for TCU this spring as he completed his undefeated regular season with a win over the third singles player from Baylor and moved his overall record to 13-0. Fomba has not lost a set in either singles or doubles all spring as he swept his Baylor counterpart 7-6, 6-3. Sebastian Gorzny also completed an undefeated singles regular season as he stormed back after losing the first set to take the match with wins in the last two sets by scores of 6-2 and 6-1. TCU completed an undefeated indoor regular season with an overall record of 8-0 and will next travel to the ITA Indoor National Championship taking place in Chicago, February 17th through the 20th.

Women’s Tennis: TCU faced off against two SEC opponents this past week in Fort Worth with matches against Alabama this past Saturday and Ole Miss this past Sunday. The Frogs were dominant in a 4-0 sweep of Alabama which was their third sweep in a row to start the season. They got off to a hot start, taking the doubles point thanks to wins from the pairs of Destinee Martins and Tiphanie Lemaitre and Jade Otway and Mercedes Aristegui. Both doubles teams for the Frogs won their matches by final scores of 6-4. Yu-Chin Tsai and Helena Yarmont made up the third doubles pairing for the Frogs against Alabama and they were trailing 3-5 when TCU clinched the point. Lemaitre, who was making her debut at TCU, continued her success from doubles over into singles where she easily defeated the top singles player from Alabama in straight sets by scores of 6-3 and 6-1. Aristegui and Otway were also able to secure singles wins in straight sets to clinch the match and complete the sweep for TCU. Martins and Yarmont had both split their first two sets in their singles matches but were ahead in the third set when TCU clinched while Tsai was ahead 3-0 in the first set of her match before it was stopped. Ole Miss presented a much greater challenge for the Frogs as they came back from down 3-2 to win a thriller, 4-3. The doubles point would be very important in this close match and TCU was able to win it thanks to victories from the Aristegui and Otway pairing as well as the Tsai and Yarmont pairing. The 1-0 TCU lead was extended when Martins won her singles match in straight sets by scores of 6-1 and 6-4. Ole Miss would go on to win three straight singles matches, putting them 1 win away from clinching the win. Aristegui would win a very close two sets (7-6, 7-5) to tie the match at 3 points apiece with the deciding singles match being the 6th pairing from both schools as Tsai faced off against Reka Zadori from Ole Miss. Tsai was up to the task for the Frogs as she won two sets by comfortable margins, completing the comeback for TCU 6-1, 6,4. TCU has two matches coming this weekend in Fort Worth with San Francisco on Saturday and Abilene Christian on Sunday.

Track and Field: TCU Track and Field sent Frogs to two different meets this past weekend with a two day meet happening at New Mexico in Albuquerque and a one day distance meet taking place at Iowa State in Ames. Day one of the New Mexico meet saw Samarra Monrroy win the 400-meter unseeded with an excellent time of 55.82 and Donnie James running a very solid time in the mens 400-meter unseeded with a time of 48.97, good for 12th overall in the meet. Iyana Gray was great for the Frogs as well as she ran a 23.42 200-meter, the 3rd fastest in TCU history, good for 12th overall. Jillian Johnson and Elise Dobson competed in the pentathlon and both had solid showings, coming in 10th and 17th with scores of 3,566 and 3,374 respectively. Grace Anigbata stole the show for the Frogs on day two of the New Mexico meet as she finished second in the triple jump with a leap of 13.24 meters. Two Frogs finished top ten in the men’s triple jump as Jaren Hall and Theophilus Mudzengerere came in 7th and 8th respectively. Gracie Morris continued her dominance in distance events for TCU in Ames this past Saturday as she won both the mile and 800-meter races. The Frogs had 4 finishers in the top 10 of the 800-meter with Jasmin Muhammad-Graham, London Culbreath, and Rylan Engels finishing 5th, 6th and 8th behind Morris. Track and field will be back in action this weekend at the Jarvis Hall open in Lubbock this Friday and Saturday.

Rifle: TCU rifle took home their 6th Patriot Rifle Conference Championship in program history this past weekend behind incredible performances from Julie Johannessen and Katie Zaun. The championship was spread out over two day with smallbore taking place on Friday and air rifle happening on Saturday. The Frogs had the top two shooters in smallbore in Johannessen and Zaun during the team portion of the contest as Johannessen set the NCAA record in smallbore with a score of 598. Johannessen shot in both the kneeling and prone positions before firing a perfect 200 in the standing position. Zaun had an excellent day too as she fired a 593. The Frogs were in second place as a team after day 1 behind Alaska-Fairbanks who fired a team score of 2,365 to TCU’s 2,360. That deficit would be erased by a magnificent performance in air rifle by the Frogs as they were responsible for 4 of the top 8 scores and 3 of the top 4 scores. Johannessen and Zaun led all shooters yet again as Johannessen shot a perfect 600 and Zaun finished right behind her at 599. Johannessen would go on to win the gold medal in air rifle as Abigail Gordon and Zaun both qualified and finished tied for 3rd and 7th respectively. The Frogs won the conference championship by a razor thin margin of 4,750 to Alaska-Fairbank’s 4,749. TCU rifle will next travel to Air Force for the NCAA Qualifier on February 18th for the final score used to determine the 8 teams that get invites to the NCAA National Championship.