With the school's best-ever player returning for her senior campaign, a strong recruiting class hitting campus and a schedule bursting with top-ranked teams staring it in the face - the thinking at UNLV in January was "This is the year."
Turned out that thinking was right.
"A breakthrough season for UNLV Tennis, which is what we hoped for," Head Coach Ola Malmqvist said about 1997. "Overall, it was a very exciting, positive year."
In retrospect it is not difficult to see that the pieces had come together: All-Everything Marianne Vallin had turned in her finest fall season with a 16-6 tournament record. Top freshmen Gee Gee Garvin, Veronica Goude and Natalie Frawley took up residence in the 2-4 singles spots. And 14 teams ranked in the nation's top 50 awaited the Lady Rebels during the regular season.
The results were a school record-high ranking, historic victories and unprecedented individual honors.
Success came quickly. Led by Vallin, who suddenly was ranked higher than any women's player in school history at No. 4 as well as teaming with Garvin on the nation's No. 13 doubles tandem, the team became a road force for the first time in Malmqvist's tenure.
The day after St. Valentine's, UNLV recorded its biggest win in history with a 6-3 defeat of California -- in Berkeley no less. With the Golden Bears, who would finish in the top 10, ranked 18th at the time, it was the highest-ranked team the Lady Rebels had ever defeated.
The victory would kick-start a 10-match winning streak as UNLV next swept all-comers at the University of Washington Invitational.
Back in Las Vegas for a 10-team homestand, the Lady Rebels then crushed defending WAC champion BYU, 8-1, after only falling at No. 2 doubles. It was the program's first-ever win over the perennially powerful Cougars.
An equally impressive downing of former nemesis and defending Big West champ UC Santa Barbara followed as UNLV raised its record to an eye-popping 12-1. The winning took the Lady Rebels from 40th in the nation to 23rd to as high as 14th. For a program that hadn't even had a cup of coffee in the rankings before Malmqvist took over, it was no small feat and broke the men's school-record high of 16th earned one year earlier.
"The ranking was exciting and what made it even better was that the players earned it," Malmqvist said. "We deserved to be that high. We were that good in singles."
After avenging a loss to Kansas from '96, UNLV fell to 10th-ranked Georgia and 6th-ranked Arizona is successive days for its only home losses of the year, eventually sporting an 11-2 record at the Fertitta Tennis Complex.
History continued to be written on April 19 when Vallin used her final home appearance to break the school's career singles victories record. The senior's 6-4, 6-2, dispatching of Utah's Linda Engblom gave Vallin 121 wins, one more than former leader and current pro Jolene Watanabe who played at the school from 1987-90. For her efforts, Vallin earned her second-consecutive WAC Player of the Week honors.
Another first came just days later when Vallin & Co., sporting a 4-0 league record, earned the No. 1 seed at its first-ever WAC championship tournament. The Lady Rebels rode into Tulsa, Okla., and quickly shut out Hawaii to open the proceedings. A 5-2 win over TCU then moved UNLV into the semifinals vs. 4th seed San Diego State. Although the Lady Rebels had already defeated the Aztecs on a neutral court during the regular season, SDSU won two excruciating three-set singles matches to upset UNLV 5-3.
"It was a big disappointment but the WAC is a strong conference," Malmqvist said. "Any of four teams could have won it. Basically San Diego State won everything that was close and took the match."
Vallin led the conference awards as her school's first-ever WAC Player of the Year in any sport. It was the third such honor of her career after finishing with an incredible 27-3 career record vs. league opponents. Vallin also became the first UNLV player ever to be named first-team all-conference in both singles and doubles all four years. Her partner, Garvin, joined her on the first-team for doubles while freshman Frawley was named to the second team in singles.
Not through with milestones, however, UNLV earned its first-ever bid to NCAA post-season play when it was named the No. 2 seed for the West Regional in San Diego, Calif. The Lady Rebels, however, picked up the unenviable task of facing the host team in the first round. When Vallin had her seven-match winning streak stopped in three sets, the Toreros, ranked 20 spots lower, eked out a 5-4 upset of UNLV.
Despite the Lady Rebels finishing with the most wins for the program since 1992 (17), Malmqvist, who was chosen as the Regional Coach of the Year for the first time, said it was a bumpy ending.
"We had a few disappointments at the end," he said. "Our doubles weren't as good as they needed to be. Also, we played the same six people every single match and they kind of wore down by the end of the season. We hoped to finish the season better than we did but it was still an exciting year from start to finish."
Vallin moved on to her school-record fourth NCAA singles championship as well as her third doubles event. After a first-round doubles defeat, her magical collegiate career came to an end on May 20 with a second-round singles loss, 6-1, 3-6, 7-5, to Bama's Baila Camino.
The final numbers were staggering. Vallin left with a 125-43 career singles slate for a school-record .744 career winning percentage. Her 62 doubles wins were the second most ever and .674 career winning percentage the highest in UNLV annals.
Also an Academic All-American, Vallin continued to reel in major hardware. She was voted UNLV's Sportswoman of the Year for the second consecutive season. She was tabbed ITA Regional Senior of the Year. She was named NCAA Woman of the Year for the state of Nevada. She then traveled to Dallas, Texas, to pick up the biggest honor ever bestowed a UNLV women's tennis player - the 1997 Gladys Heldman Award.
Vallin's career was so furiously successful that the government had to get involved. On June 27, she and her coach traveled to Carson City to be honored by the Nevada State Assembly and Senate at the State Capitol. A joint resolution even resulted in the declaration of Marianne Vallin Day in Nevada.
"Marianne finished off one the best four-year careers in college tennis," Malmqvist said. "She came through with the senior leadership that we needed and helped us reach things for the first time here. I and everyone on this team are thankful to her. She surely will be missed."
