Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Rebels capture three Mountain West titles in five days

Three UNLV teams won the Mountain West championship in the past five days to give the Rebels five conference titles in 2017-18.

• In men’s golf, senior Shintaro Ban captured the league’s individual title on Sunday to pace the Rebels to a team championship. UNLV posted an eight stroke win over second-place Colorado State at the three-day event in Bremerton, Wash.

Ban on Sunday fired a 65 on the par-72 course to finish 16-under-par and nine strokes ahead of UNR’s Grant Booth in second.

Jack Trent was 13th for the Rebels at 2-over-par for the event, Harry Hall and Justin Kim followed at 3-over.

"It's quite an accomplishment for these guys," UNLV coach Dwaine Knight said in a statement."Each one (MW Championship) was a little different. Guys were pretty solid. Nothing is easy, the conference is strong from top to bottom and you really have to play well to get a conference championship. So we are real proud to represent the Mountain West as champions this year."

• In women’s tennis, the Rebels capped an undefeated regular season with a 5-2 victory at Fresno State on Saturday for their second straight regular season West Division championship.

It is the program’s 10th overall conference championship. Also, it marks the third-time in program history that UNLV went undefeated in conference matches.

Aiwen Zhu, ranked No. 62 nationally, won 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 in No. 1 singles to highlight the win. In doubles, she teamed with En-Pei Huang for the decisive point.

The Mountain West tournament is April 27-29 in Boise.

“It’s always nice to go undefeated in the Mountain West regular season. Now we’ll go home and get ready for the trip to Boise,” UNLV coach Kevin Cory said in a statement.

• In women’s golf, the Rebels won their third straight Mountain West championship on Wednesday. The Rebels finished 8-over-par for the tournament, which was eight strokes ahead of second-place San Diego State.

“I can’t say enough about this team and how they performed this week and all year,” UNLV coach Amy Bush-Herzer said in a statement. “This is our fourth tournament win this season and it’s so hard to win one let alone four, so I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

Senior Mackenzie Raim took second individually by carding a 2-under-par

“I’m so happy for Mack in her last tournament, she played great all three days and earned every bit of that second place finish,” Bush-Herzer said.

Freshman Polly Mack finished at 4-over to place eighth for UNLV, Shannon Oh and Elizabeth Prior tied for 10th at 5-over.

Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21

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