Charger tennis will open their spring season at Western Michigan University on Sunday at 4 p.m., where they will face their first Division I opponent since the team’s reincarnation in 2011.
After finishing their regular season in sixth place at the GLIAC championship in October, the team looks forward to getting back into match play. Hillsdale will not graduate any players in May, so this spring season is a crucial opportunity to grow and to improve for the 2014 season.
“Our matches don’t have the pressure factor that our fall season brings, so I think it is helpful to play matches at which we can relax a bit and really work on what we need to without worrying about qualifying for a conference tournament,” head coach Nikki Walbright said. “Our main goal will be to have a good showing against the very tough competition we have lined up this spring.”
For the spring season the team plans on playing six matches, half of which are against DI teams Western Michigan, State University of New York-Buffalo, and Florida Atlantic University.
“We have more freedom to play schools outside the GLIAC,” Walbright said, “so it is nice to get experience from competing against different teams.”
The team will travel to south Florida for its first spring break trip, where it will face three schools in matches over a period of five days.
“It is not something we can afford to do every year so it is a great treat to be able to do it this year,” coach Walbright said. “We will have some very good matches down south and I am excited to play schools we would not have the opportunity to play up north.”
Junior Lindsay Peirce said that the trip will be more like an extended tournament than training or practice, and will give the team essential match practice.
“It will be a lot of fun,” Peirce said.
Overall, the team hopes that the slower pace of the spring season and the new chances to compete against different teams will help the team improve and come back stronger.
“It’ll be nice getting back into match play and seeing what we need to work on as a team,” Peirce said.
