UT ex Davenport named assistant coach at Lamar
Empress Davenport, a popular player for Texas for four seasons, has been named assistant coach of the Lamar women’s basketball team.
Davenport played in 131 games with 97 starts for the Longhorns from 2012 to 2016. She helped UT to three NCAA Tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight showing her senior season. She was an honorable mention All-Big 12 selection in 2016, helping Texas finish 31-5 and record its most victories in a single season since 1987-88. For her UT career, she aver- aged 7.2 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists.
Davenport graduated from UT in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in applied learning and development and then played one season with Alvik Basket, a professional team in Sweden.
Lamar returns 10 letter winners from last year’s Southland Conference championship squad, which was 22-8 (.733) overall and 17-1 (.944) in conference play.
Men’s tennis: Yuya Ito and Christian Sigsgaard each won three matches at the Oracle ITA Masters in Malibu, Calif., on Thursday.
Both notched victories in singles action and had two mixed doubles wins.
Ito and Lisa Marie Rioux of Oklahoma State won 6-1 over Andrew Ton and Ana Joyner to open the day. They ended the day by defeating Majed Kilani and Fatima Bizhukova 6-1 in the second round.
Sigsgaard and partner Erica Oosterhout of Harvard earned a 6-1 win over Felipe Sarrasague and Rosie Cheng in the first round. The No. 14 duo topped the No. 3 team of Daniel Cukierman and Salma Ewing 6-4 in a
second-round upset.
No. 1 seed Ito defeated Ton of Navy in singles action 6-4, 6-2, and No. 5 Sigsgaard bested Igor Kolaric of Illinois State 6-3, 6-2.
— CAT VASQUEZ, AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Women’s tennis: Bianca Turati lost in straight sets to touring pro Robin Anderson 6-3, 6-1 in the quarterfinals at the International Tennis Federation pro circuit event at McLeod Tennis Center in Lubbock on Thursday.
Anderson, 308th in the WTA world singles rankings, was to face Emina Bektas in the semifinals Friday.
Turati, ranked No. 1 in the Oracle/ITA preseason national collegiate rankings, survived a three-hour match against Tara Moore in the round of 32 to win 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (5-7), 6-4 and defeated Jennifer Elie 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the quarterfinals.
— RYAN BUTLER, AMERICAN-STATESMAN