HOUSTON – A busy weekend is in store for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) men's tennis team, featuring three road matches in two days. 
 
The Vaqueros (0-2) will face Rice (2-1) at 10 a.m. Saturday at the George R. Brown Tennis Center. They will head to San Antonio for two competitions Sunday, first taking on St. Mary's at 9:30 a.m. at the Rohrbach Stadium Tennis Complex and then battling the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) Roadrunners (1-1) at 2 p.m. at the UTSA Tennis Center. 
 
UTRGV opened the season against tough competition in T-No. 3 TCU and (RV) Texas Tech. Facing strong opponents early showed the Vaqueros where they need to be, and they're willing to work hard to get there. 
 
"We definitely want to use our springboard from TCU and Texas Tech a couple weeks ago to continue to get ourselves ready for the rest of the season," coach Nathan Robinson said. "They reacted the right way, basically saying, 'Look, we got beat, but we see how we can get ourselves better.' The guys are really hungry to continue to prove themselves and move forward and get better." 
 
Rice is coming off a 7-0 victory over Prairie View A&M. UTSA recently defeated the University of Louisiana-Lafayette 6-1. St. Mary's hasn't competed since the ITA South Central Regional on Sept. 30-Oct. 2. As UTRGV takes on a busy road trip and good competition, Robinson wants the student-athletes to focus on progressing and competing.  
 
"Those schools have all had good starts to their year. Those teams are in a good place mentally and physically right now," Robinson said. "The biggest thing we've been preaching since last week is we want Ws and Bs, but not Ls. We want to win or get beat. We don't want to lose matches. We're really working on making sure that if we are losing matches, it's because we got beat, not because we cost ourselves the match. Our biggest focus is the competitive side." 
 
Senior Carlo Izurieta, junior George Hutchings, the team's lone freshman Sam Whitehead, and junior Misha Kvantaliani, who will be making his season debut, are a few of the athletes high on Robinson's radar. The three-match weekend will give Robinson a chance to play some athletes who aren't usually in the lineup, strengthening the team as a whole. 
 
"I'm excited to see Misha play. I think he's going to surprise some people this year. He's going to be our guy that we lean on to lead the way for us," Robinson said. "The steps that (Izurieta has) taken since August are outstanding. The way he's grown as a leader on the team, the way he's grown in doubles, the way he's grown as a competitor, he's going to become a handful in our lineup wherever he's playing. I'm really excited about this team." 

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