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Friday, March 9, 2001
A&M-CC hungry for tourney victory
Team confident Islanders’ goal of cracking Intercollegiate Top 75 still within reach
By Darrin Scheid
Caller-Times

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Islanders tennis player Stuart Beauchamp practices for the 2001 Collegiate Tennis Championships that begin today at the H.E.B. Tennis Center.

During a match this season against its big brother to the north, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi tennis coach Steve Moore stopped to soak in a moment.
   In front of a crowd of about 400 in College Station, the Islanders got a victory from senior Antoine Quinquis at the top singles spot. They got a victory at No. 3 from senior Stuart Beauchamp. The match at No. 4 went to a tiebreaker.
   Moore, a 30-year-old Corpus Christi native, said he looked around - and knew this job of building a program in his hometown is pretty cool.
   He still thought it was cool when the Islanders lost the match, 4-2.
   "I have poured my heart and soul into this tennis program, spent my own money at times, and it's for moments like that,'' Moore said. "We didn't even win the match, but after that, our guys knew they could compete with anybody in the country. That's why these guys came here. That's why I wanted the job, to have a tennis program this city will be proud of.''
   The Islanders are 8-3 in dual matches, including a 6-0 victory Thursday over Wichita State.
   Beauchamp say players this season have a goal similar to their coach's, to eventually sit back and say, "We did it."
   Beauchamp said he transferred to A&M-CC with the idea that, by the time they left, the program would be part of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Top 75. They would become the first sport at the school to crack a national poll.
   The Islanders haven't done it. But with a 4-3 victory on Feb. 1 against then-No. 52 Arkansas-Little Rock, combined with the scare at Texas A&M on Jan. 27, they said the ranking is within reach by the end of the year.
   A&M-CC's other two losses were against then-No. 60 Arkansas, 5-2, and against unranked Southwest Missouri State, 4-3.
   It will take a few more eye-opening matches, Moore said.
   That's why this weekend's H-E-B Collegiate tournament at the H-E-B Tennis Center is so important for the Islanders' chances to earn a ranking, Moore said.
   The 16-team field includes seven teams in the ITA Top 75, including No. 16 South Alabama, No. 18 Oklahoma State and No. 33 Middle Tennessee State. Oklahoma City, the top-ranked team in NAIA Division I, also will be there.
   A&M-Corpus Christi opens today's first round at 10 a.m. against New Mexico. A victory would send the Islanders into a 5 p.m. match later today against the winner of the Idaho State-Middle Tennessee match.
   "A good showing this weekend could go a long way for us,'' said Beauchamp, a transfer from Brigham Young who is 10-1 in dual matches this spring. "We feel like we're pretty close. Our goal has been to be ranked, and this could be our chance to show that we should be.''
   Beauchamp, a native of Hobart, Australia, has spent most of this spring season in the No. 1 spot. Australian native Paul McInerney and the French-born Quinquis switch from No. 2 to No. 3.
   McInerney has plenty of experience with the H-E-B Collegiate tournament.
   He was in South Alabama's starting lineup as a freshman when the Jaguars won the tournament. He was there last season as a junior when South Alabama finished third.
   "If you're disciplined in the classroom, you'll be disciplined on the tennis court,'' McInerney said. "Coach Moore works so hard trying to get this program built that we feel like it's the least we can do to match what he does. A lot of matches we've won this year is just because we outwork people.''
   Moore said his goal is to replenish next year's roster with more players like Beauchamp, McInerney and Quinquis.
   Moore supplements his income with a part-time job at Most Precious Blood Catholic Church. In the past three years, Moore said he has slept in his car in Florida on a recruiting trip. He did it again in California. This year, he said there probably will be more strange money-saving recruiting stories before the late signing period begins April 14.
   If the Islanders make it to the championship match this weekend, and if they can knock off some of those seven nationally-ranked teams in the field, he said it will be worth it. He might have another moment like the one he had in College Station.
   "If I didn't think this city could have a nationally-ranked tennis team, I would not be here,'' he said.


Staff writer Darrin Scheid can be reached at 886-3747 or by e-mail at scheidd@caller.com

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