The Portland State women’s tennis team has two matches scheduled this weekend, playing Sacramento State on Friday and hitting the road against Eastern Washington on Saturday. The Viks will need to use their home court advantage to the fullest extent on Friday when they take on the undefeated Sac State Hornets. Against cross-state rivals Eastern Washington, conference standings will be on the line as the Eagles sit one spot behind the Viks in eighth place.
PSU has struggled to regain the early momentum it held in the start of conference play. The Viks won their opening conference match against Northern Colorado, but have recently fallen into a four-game losing streak, including a conference loss to Northern Arizona last weekend.
The Viks will be able to use the Lumberjacks match as a precursor for Sac State and Eastern Washington. Although they were unable to pull out a final win, there were points of strong competition throughout the match.
Junior Marti Pellicano and senior Masha Los pushed their third position doubles match into a tie-breaking round. Later, Pellicano sent her singles match into a third frame, although NAU pulled out the win in the end. Freshman Yuki Sugiyama was the lone point earner of the 6-1 loss, winning her match in three sets.
Head coach Jay Sterling said that the team played a competitive game and did not make any excuses as to the outcome. He said this competitiveness is a key element that the team needs to continue bringing to the court in the upcoming matches. Individually, the coach acknowledged three specific matches.
“Yuki [Sugiyama] had a great match and a really great win for her,” Sterling said. “Marti Pellicano competed really well in her match and she had some opportunities to close that match out. Our No. 3 doubles [Pellicano and Los] also played great and lost a heartbreaking match.”
Added Sterling, “They all went there and competed and exceeded expectations.”
The Viks will need to put their resilience in overdrive on Friday against the competitive Hornets. Sac State stands alone at the top of the standings with its unmatched, undefeated record of 7-0 in conference, and15-8 overall. The team is on a four-game winning streak, beginning after a loss to non-conference opponent Washington.
The Hornets have shut out four conference rivals, and never let a Big Sky opponent earn more than one point. Cumulatively the Hornets have made 79 straight Big Sky victories, and their rankings have already warranted them a 10th consecutive Big Sky regular season victory.
Sterling is confident that the Hornets have great talent, but are not unbeatable. He said that their intimidation factor is a big reason teams fall so hard to them. The coach noted that despite the known difficulties, the players are still fired up to play in a competitive match.
On Saturday the Viks hit the road for a match against the Eastern Washington Eagles. The Eagles are holding an eighth place standing in the Big Sky—ahead of Idaho State, which is in ninth. Eastern has struggled to secure a win since the team’s sole conference victory against Idaho State in February. The team is coming off a 12-game losing streak, with four conference losses.
Sterling said the team needs to focus on playing its own game in order to compete well against two very different levels of competition.
“We talk about controllable versus uncontrollable all the time. Your opponent is an uncontrollable,” Sterling said. “It doesn’t really matter who you have on the other side of the net, whether it is number one Sac State or a number one from a division three school, you can [only] control what you do on the court.”
The Vikings would need to win out all three of their final matches in combination with losses from above-ranked teams in order to get into post-season action. But right now, the team is focusing on one match at a time as it pushes for a strong finish.
The Viks have not ended the season above eighth place in the past two years, so even securing a split this weekend would give the team a higher finish and show growth. The team knows it has improvements to make from last weekend, and will need to apply these improvements both home and away.
The Sac State match is slated at home beginning at 1 p.m. at the Club Green Meadows in Vancouver, Wash., the Eastern Washington match begins at 3 p.m. on Saturday in Spokane. ?