FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (January 9, 2019) – After a successful fall slate, the Northern Arizona women's tennis team opens their spring season this weekend in Dallas, Texas at the SMU Metroplex Mania. Along with NAU and host SMU, BYU, Iowa and Northwestern State will be competing over three days starting Friday at the SMU Tennis Complex.
"We're all very excited to be training again," said head coach
Ewa Bogusz. "We're rested and ready to go. This weekend will be a good beginning to the season. We're going to be able to play a lot of matches that's going to help us going forward as we have big goals for ourselves at the end of the season."
The Lumberjacks will begin play on Friday at 11 a.m. MST with doubles against BYU and singles versus SMU in the round robin format. Play will continue for NAU on Saturday and Sunday.
NAU, voted first in the Big Sky Preseason Poll on Tuesday, returns all six of its primary players and added two freshmen to a lineup that went 19-4 last season. The Lumberjacks were a perfect 11-0 in conference play for the second consecutive season on their way to clinching their third consecutive Big Sky regular season championship.
Senior
Hanneke Lodewijks and junior
Chiara Tomasetti occupied the top two spots in NAU's lineup last season, combining for a 35-9 singles record at the No. 1 and 2 positions. Both 'Jacks were named to the All-Big Sky First Team in singles.
Sophomores
Cora-Lynn von Dungern and
Ellie Millard were the primary No. 3 and No. 4 players, while senior
Eirene Granville and senior
Madi Moore were the No. 5 and No. 6 players respectively. As a team, NAU posted a highly-successful 85-43 singles record in the spring a year ago.
Lodewijks and Millard led the Lumberjacks in doubles, posting a 13-2 record at No. 1 – and 15-3 overall – while earning All-Big Sky First Team Doubles honors. Tomasetti and Moore were honored on the Second Team as they compiled a 16-2 doubles mark together split between No. 2 and No. 3. Granville and von Dungern were 11-3 overall as a doubles pair.
The six returners were joined by freshmen
Emilie Haakansson and
Adrianna Sosnowska in the fall with both first-year Lumberjacks making a strong early impression. Haakansson (7-2) and Sosnowska (8-5) both posted winning singles records during the fall campaign.
Tomasetti made the biggest impression, stringing together 16 victories in 20 singles matches in the fall, including qualifying for the ITA National Fall Championships after claiming the ITA Mountain Regional Singles Championship. She begins the spring ranked No. 75 nationally in the Oracle/ITA Division I Women's Rankings.
"This is an amazing group of young ladies; they're great athletes," Bogusz said. "It's fun and easy to work with them. They're self-driven and I'm excited to see how much they can accomplish."
NAU will face stiff competition in its spring opener as it is just one of three teams who were a win away from the NCAA Tournament. Like the Lumberjacks, who fell in the Big Sky Championship match, SMU and Northwestern State also finished as their respective conference tournament runner-ups.
SMU post a 17-9 record last spring, falling in the final of the American Athletic Conference tournament. Northwestern State's 16-9 season last spring came to an end in the championship match of the Southland Conference tournament.
BYU and Iowa were 13-8 and 10-14 respectively last season.
