The Colonel tennis team hosted the first home match of the spring season this past Saturday against Louisiana Tech University.

 The Colonels started off the season with a loss against Louisiana State University (1-6), but bounced back to win the Louisiana Tech University match. The Colonels dropped their doubles points but came back to win in the singles. The match concluded with the Colonels winning the match 4-3.

The LSU match helped the team get a feel for how much improvement is needed before they defend their conference title. The Colonels use stiff preseason competition to prepare them for southland.  
  
The singles consisted of Stephanie Barnett, Julia Melendez and Isla Brock, who all helped set the tone of the match with three straight wins. Their wins were key parts to the success against LA Tech, with Milou Pietersz sealing the win with a victory over Zoe Chen 7-6, 7-3, 1-6, and 7-5.

This season the tennis team is playing with eight players compared to last year’s ten. With two freshmen and one red shirt player, there is more pressure on the returning players.

“We want to meet the expectations and find the way with the new people,” said Pietersz.

With high expectations from last season’s record-setting performance win, the Colonels are set to prove it was not a one-time occurrence.

“The freshmen played pretty well compared to the returning players, so we will see how the season goes,” Meenakshi Sundaram, head coach, said.

With matches against schools in bigger conference and programs of bigger budgets this season, Sundaram is confident his players will be tough to beat.

“My girls are tough. They are hard to beat and the coaches know that. They know when they play them they will not be an easy win,” Meenakshi said.

Every match will be played with the same amount of importance as the conference matches; the goal is to keep their ranking.

“It’s about taking it day by day; it makes it easier to come ahead as a team and keep academics as a priority,” said Meenakshi.

There is also pressure to send off senior Isla Bock on a high rate. Bock was Southland Conference No. 5 and No. 6 Singles Champion and second Team Southland All-Academic twice.

“The goal is to make sure it’s a great season, to send off Isla with great memories and a great season,” Meenakshi said.

“I want to do better as a team, and for my senior year it would be great to win conference,” said Bock.
The team expects the match this weekend against Tulane University to be challenging, but not impossible to win.

The Tulane game will give the Colonels the chance to reestablish themselves after last year’s loss against the Green Wave and instill hope to beat them again as they did for the 2013-2014 season.
“We can still improve in all the important places, because we cannot look bad,” said Pietersz.