Ola Malmqvist says it without hesitation.

"We had the toughest schedule in the nation in 1998," claimed the sixth-year UNLV head coach, who would end up leaving the program this past December.

"I probably over-scheduled for our team and it led to some tough times," he said about a slate that featured 12 top-25 teams, including an incredible seven dates with teams ranked in the nation's top 10.

However, the rough spots Malmqvist cites - most notably an eight-match losing streak early in the year - were just bumps in a road to success for the Lady Rebels.

In fact, the first dual-match season since 1993 played without the school's best player in history was downright prosperous. With three-time All-American, conference MVP and career singles victories leader Marianne Vallin graduated (with honors, of course) and back in her homeland of Sweden, UNLV had to find a new way to make news in '98.

It did not take long.

Gee Gee Garvin was the sophomore looking to take up some of Vallin's slack while Susie Kocsis was a veteran performer who transferred in from the southeast. Together they did things no UNLV women's doubles team had ever done before the calendar even changed to spring. Their 9-2 fall record included a championship at the UNLV Fall Invitational and a semifinal run at the Riviera All-American Championships in October. The duo entered the tournament ranked 40th but five straight-set victories later, it had earned a trip into the nation's top five.

Garvin and Kocsis broke the school record for highest doubles ranking, which was set a year earlier when Vallin and Veronica Goude were 13th, when they were listed No. 4 in December.

"During the fall season, they were playing like the best doubles team in the history of the school," Malmqvist said.

Unfortunately, such momentum would not follow the Lady Rebels deep into the spring. After three solid victories to open the season, 37th-ranked UNLV hit a wall when the aforementioned power opponents were on the docket. There was eighth-ranked Arizona State in Tempe, second-rated UCLA on the road, even top-ranked Florida came to town to shut out the Lady Rebels.

It was two days after the Lady Gator whitewash, on March 14 to be exact, that UNLV came to life. In its last match as host of the 1998 Excalibur Challenge, the team faced No. 8 William & Mary. It took winning two third-set tiebreakers in singles and rallying for two of three points in doubles play for the visiting Tribe to avoid becoming the first top-10 team to fall to the UNLV women.

A respectable follow-up effort against third-ranked Duke only succeeded in pushing the losing streak to eight. However, the Lady Rebels made the turn after plummeting all the way to 72nd in the poll. A thrilling 5-4 victory over 34th-ranked Indiana, which was clinched by a Garvin/Kocsis doubles point, revitalized the squad.

UNLV would win four straight and eight of its last 12 regular-season matches, which turned the Lady Rebels into a confident bunch heading into the annual conference tournament.

UNLV entered the Fort Worth, Texas, event as the number seven seed and quickly got by UTEP to move into quarterfinal action. A clash with second-seed San Diego State created a delicious 5-3 upset win by Malmqvist's squad. Not only had the Aztecs handily beaten UNLV just 11 days earlier, but they also upset the top-seeded Lady Rebels and knock them out of the 1997 WAC tournament.

"It feels good to beat the defending WAC champions," Malmqvist said after the match. "It was without question the biggest win of the year for our program."

The unlikely run continued with an upset of third-seeded and 25th-ranked New Mexico to earn UNLV its first appearance in the WAC finals. That was the good news. The bad news was that the Lady Rebels, winners of three marathon matches, were up against seventh-ranked BYU, which had yet to break a sweat while rolling into the championship. Final score: BYU 5, UNLV 0.

"We had a string of long matches and had no legs left in the finals," Malmqvist said. "Otherwise, we would have given them a better match. We put on a good show all week but BYU had its best team ever."

In the league's annual awards, Garvin was tabbed First-Team All-WAC in singles and also teamed with Kocsis for a first-team doubles nod.

UNLV's gritty performance not only earned it a second consecutive NCAA postseason berth but a fourth seed in the eight-team field. Staged at the Fertitta Tennis Complex for the first time, the West Regional opened with UNLV whipping Washington State 5-1, without needing to doubles play.

Day Two brought top-seeded Pepperdine. UNLV stretched the 12th-ranked Waves into doubles (the only team to do so) but ultimately fell 5-2 to end the Lady Rebels' '98 team campaign.

"We got beat by a better team," Malmqvist said. "Overall, we came a long way in moving from the 70s in the rankings all the way to the regional semifinals."

Such a move was made possible in part by the inspired play of two departing seniors as Marie Linusson and Lisa Annebro both completed their collegiate careers in the school's top-10 for singles wins.

"Lisa and Marie came through with some real big wins (six total) in the postseason," said their coach. "It was a nice way for them to finish up."

The Lady Rebels officially closed up shop after Garvin/Kocsis fell in the first round of the NCAA Doubles Championship held in South Bend, Ind. The duo, which had become the school's first team without the name Vallin in it to qualify for nationals, finished at No. 20 in the ITA Rankings - the best ever for a Lady Rebel entry.

UNLV also earned its second-highest final team ranking at No. 28. Malmqvist said that was an accomplishment in itself for the WAC runners-up.

"A little better luck and we would have had our highest ranking ever," he said. "We were one point away (against William & Mary) from breaking the top 20.

"It shows that the program has reached a new level where one player leaving - even a Marianne Vallin -- doesn't mean the team production goes down."

And, it should be noted, something else said without hesitation.