The Portland State tennis squads have an exciting weekend ahead, as the teams will travel separately and will each face two opponents.
The men’s team will travel to Seattle on Friday to face California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), and then head down south to Eugene on Saturday to play against Idaho.
The women’s team, on the other hand, will stay in Portland to play local rivals Lewis & Clark on Saturday before making the season’s home debut at Club Green Meadows against UC Davis.
The men’s team began its 2011 campaign with a loss against Oregon last weekend. Senior Alex VanDerschelden was the only player to record a singles win as the Vikings lost 1-6 to the Ducks. Last year, the Viks had lost 0-7 to Oregon.
“Matt [Erickson], Vetu [Mam], Roman [Margoulis] and Chris [Rice]—they all had chances to win their second sets against Oregon, and really pushed it close,” head coach Jay Sterling said. “If we could have started the first sets like we did in the second sets, there’s no doubt that we would’ve won more matches. So, it’s another lesson learned for the guys.”
The Viks will hope to register their first win of the season this weekend, but Sterling knows that it won’t be easy.
“For the men, the road doesn’t get any easier any time soon, which was our intention when making our schedule,” Sterling said. “Cal Poly is a perennial powerhouse and Idaho is nationally ranked after a great fall season.”
Sterling has set his sights on the Big Sky conference and sees these challenges as stepping-stones to make it to the playoffs. Last season, the Viks narrowly missed the trip to the semi-finals and finished fifth in the conference.
“It’s all in preparation for our conference opener vs. Sac State. It is an opportunity for our guys to compete at a high level, and gain valuable experience. To be the best, you have to compete against the best, so that’s our plan,” Sterling said.
The start of 2011 for the women’s tennis team was no better with respect to the result. The women Vikings too lost 0-7 to Oregon last weekend in Eugene. But Sterling does see some positives that the team could take away from their performances.
“None of our teams held serve in their first service games, and we failed to break in our first receiving games, so we basically started every doubles match off at 0-2 before we really got things going,” Sterling said. “But overall, there were a ton of positives to take away from our opening dual, and I couldn’t be more proud of our women’s team, and the progress that they have made.”
Last season, the women earned a hard-fought 5-2 win over Lewis & Clark, but were humbled 0-6 by UC Davis in California. Against Lewis & Clark, senior Anya Dalkin, senior Caitlin Stocking, sophomore Nayantara Vadali, junior Marti Pellicano and junior Kylea Gleason all won their singles matches.
“For the women, I am hoping to keep the train moving, and build on the many positives from this past weekend,” Sterling said. ” Lewis & Clark has vastly improved this year, so I’m expecting that we will have a fight on our hands, but I also think that it will be a great opportunity for some of our players to work on certain aspects of their games.”
The Viks had lost both of their doubles games against the Pioneers in 2010. “Lewis & Clark’s doubles team is very strong. In fact, they took the doubles point from us last year, so we’ll be working on that a lot on that this week,” Sterling said. “Gundars [Tilmanis] is a great coach, and always has his teams ready to compete and fight for every point, so they’re not a team that we can look past, that’s for sure.”
Men’s schedule:
vs. Cal Poly @ Seattle on Friday, Jan. 28, 5:30 p.m.
vs. Idaho @Eugene on Saturday, Jan. 29, 5 p.m.
Women’s schdeule:
vs. Lewis & Clark @ Portland on Saturday, Jan. 29, 1 p.m.
vs. UC Davis @ Club Green Meadows on Sunday, Jan. 30, 11:30 a.m.