Sarmiento earns player of the week award


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Junior Ray Sarmiento became the fifth Trojan to earn Pac-12 men’s player of the week honors this season after helping the No. 4 Trojans sweep No. 43 Oregon and defeat No. 33 Washington 6-1 last weekend.

Focused on the future · Junior Ray Sarmiento (above) will look to continue his strong play in USC’s final regular season match against UCLA before heading off to the Pac-12 championships, which begin April 23. - Ralf Cheung | Daily Trojan

Focused on the future · Junior Ray Sarmiento (above) will look to continue his strong play in USC’s final regular season match against UCLA before heading off to the Pac-12 championships, which begin April 23. – Ralf Cheung | Daily Trojan

Ranked No. 14 in singles, Sarmiento defeated Oregon’s Jeff Mullen 6-2, 6-3 on Friday and Washington’s Marton Bots 6-1, 6-2 on Saturday. The wins extended his singles win streak to 11 and improved his solo record to 26-5 overall and 15-3 in dual match play.

Sarmiento’s victory over Mullen also gave the Trojans a 4-0 lead and served as the clincher over the Ducks.

Sarmiento also paired up with sophomore Yannick Hanfmann to register doubles wins in both matches. The No. 32-ranked pair took down Oregon’s Robin Cambier and Mullen, 8-3 and Washington’s Kyle McMorrow and Bots 8-2.

This is Sarmiento’s fifth career conference player of the week award after earning the honor twice in 2011 and twice in 2012. Sarmiento now joins junior Emilio Gomez, sophomores Hanfmann and Roberto Quiroz, and freshman Max de Vroome as Pac-12 men’s players of the week this season.

Sarmiento has peaked as high as No. 9 this year after concluding the 2012 season ranked No. 25 in singles. This season, Sarmiento has played primarily at the first and second courts in singles. Sarmiento is 7-3 when playing on court one and 8-0 when on court two.

In doubles play, Sarmiento and Hanfmann have gone 13-5 overall and 11-4 in dual matches and have won four in a row.

With ITA player of the year Steve Johnson graduating from USC last season, Sarmiento and Gomez emerged as the leaders of a USC squad seeking its fifth consecutive NCAA championship.

The two victories over the Ducks and Huskies extended USC’s win streak to 10 games and improved the Trojans to 22-2 overall and 5-0 in conference play. USC will now travel to Westwood to face UCLA, also undefeated in Pac-12 play, in the regular-season finale on Friday at 3 p.m.