May 23, 2006

Palo Alto, Calif. - The Thundering Herd tandem of Lynzee Kever and Kellie Schmitt are ready to get the 2006 NCAA Doubles Tournament underway against the duo of Laura Gordon and Riza Zalameda from UCLA. The match is scheduled to begin at 3:30 PDT at the Taube Tennis Center.

The meeting between the Herd and Bruins will be a rematch of the 2004 NCAA Doubles final where the UCLA tandem of Daniela Bercek and Lauren Fisher defeated the Herd's Jessica Johnson and Ashley Kroh 6-4, 6-4 to claim the title, ending Marshall's Cinderella run.

In 2006, the Herd will look to begin its quest for the crown against the Bruins.

"UCLA is obviously a great team with a great tradition and we're looking forward to the opportunity of performing on this stage against a team like this," Marshall head coach John Mercer said. "Right now we're not concerning ourselves with who we're playing, what we're concerning ourselves with is playing good quality tennis. Hopefully we can get comfortable at this level and in this environment and play the way we're capable of playing."

Gordon and Zalameda are ranked No. 12 in the latest ITA poll. Kever and Schmitt are ranked No. 56 and earned the automatic bid for Conference USA. The winner of Thursday's match will face the victor of Harvard/Florida on Friday.

Complete coverage of the 2006 NCAA Championships can be found at NCAASports.com or gostanford.com. Live scoring is provided through the championship sites and a live video feed for the six stadium courts is also available on those website. The location of Marshall's match won't be determined until immediately before the match pending on the completion of other matches.