Tennis Opens CUSA Tournament against Middle Tennessee

[Zeleny' Orel]

The CUSA Women's Tennis draw is set and UNT, the host school, garnered the #5 seed, following Rice (#1), FIU (#2), Marshall (#3), and Old Dominion (#4).  We open the tournament against #12 seed Middle Tennessee at noon on Thursday.  We are in the top half of the bracket with Rice.  If we win Thursday, we play the winner of Old Dominion-UAB on Friday at 2:00 p.m.  Winning that match will probably give us the right to play Rice in the semifinals on Saturday at noon (Rice plays the winner of #8 Southern Miss and #9 UTSA on Friday). 

Let's hope it doesn't rain and force us to play indoors at some facility in Dallas....hate to lose the home court advantage....we have no indoor courts.

GO MEAN GREEN!  Beat MT!

[outoftown]

UNT got barely through the first round, winning a must win tie breaker, but then cruised today vs ODU. Now off to the semis vs number 1 seed Rice. I do have to say that UNT might be a bit underseeded, due to a pretty tough schedule.

Edited April 22, 2017 by outoftown

[THOR]

I plan to be there tomorrow...gotta support the ladies...i assume I can drink and watch...they play at noon

Edited April 22, 2017 by THOR

[THOR]

Girls lost the doubles point...

 

 

[THOR]

Lost 5 of the 6 first sets in singles...

[THOR]

Girls lose...tough time with the wind...

[Zeleny' Orel]

Rice (seeded #1 in tournament and #37 in nation) and FIU (seeded #2 and #40 in nation) are just a level above the rest of Conference USA this year.  We are among the best of the rest.  We lose our lone senior Alexis Thoma and have no juniors on the team, so the core group is back for next two years.  Continued improvement in the play of the current freshmen and sophomores, plus two fairly good recruits, will give us a shot next year.  This is a team that needs to be "coached up" to break through the semifinals, which is where we seem to get beat each year.  Rice has won the last 4 conference championships and FIU is always in the hunt, so we need to get up to that next level to realistically compete for the championship.  With added experience, it can be done.

GO MEAN GREEN!

[Zeleny' Orel]

Looks like Rice is in a class by themselves.  They won the CUSA tournament for the 5th consecutive year, beating FIU 4-1 in the finals, after beating us 4-0 in the semis on Saturday .  For three of our four years in CUSA we have met Rice in the semifinals.  It would be interesting to see how we would fare if we were ever in the opposite half of the draw from Rice and playing someone else in the semifinals.  In 2015 we lost 4-3 to Old Dominion in the quarterfinals.  Rice loses only 2 seniors, so they should be tough again next year.

All 14 teams play in the tournament, with the top 2 seeds getting a bye.

We have our work cut out for us, but hopefully our 2 new recruits and continued development of our freshmen and sophomores will help move us to the next level.

GO MEAN GREEN!