Shupirates.com
The Seton Hall Women’s tennis team will be traveling to West Point, New York, on Friday to compete in the West Point Invitational.
The team is feeling good coming off of its last invitational, which was held at Quinnipiac University two weekends ago. The past two weeks have been fairly busy. Coach Greg Wyzykowski and the team have been taking advantage of the greater amount of time that has been allotted to them. “With the girl’s class schedules, it had been very difficult to get in consistent practices before our first invitational. The little time we had available for practice was spent playing challenge matches, adjusting lineups and checking different doubles partners” stated Coach Wyzykowski.
The West Point invitational is seen as a “make or break” type of tournament, how they play will determine who will get selected to play in the ITA tournament. Coach Wyzykowski encourages the girls to give it their all this weekend and believes that keeping a strong mentality throughout this weekend will be a key factor to their success.
This upcoming tournament is a flight tournament, not a team tournament. With this type of playing it can be difficult to determine which players from each different school the girls will be playing. In these tournaments it is more of a luck of the draw with how seeds go.
The team is shooting for making it to the semi-finals and finals rounds on Sunday. Coach Wyzykowski believes it is possible if they focus on keeping a strong mentality and playing smart. One key that they have stuck to is to listen to Coach Wyzykowski and adjust throughout their playing. Coach Wyzykowski stated, “We need to play smart, stick to smart shot selections and we can’t overpower ourselves.”
Even though the team is only approaching their second tournament of the fall, they are already looking forward for the spring season to start. “The more we play, the more potential there is for a strong spring. If the success continues, I believe that the team has a large chance of being one of the top three teams in the Big East once the spring season comes around”, stated Wyzykowski.
Since the beginning of the season, the freshmen and transfer students are continuing to adjust athletically and academically; the team has boasted the highest GPAs out of all women’s varsity sports at Seton Hall for the past two years. Last year 7 out of 8 girls made the dean’s list. Coach Wyzykowski believes that it is equally important to be strong academically as well as athletically.
One thing that has been difficult for the tennis team is having no tennis courts to practice on that are located on campus. The girls are hoping that the success they have been proving will show the importance of supporting and recognizing the team.
With the success that the team has been having and the publicity the freshmen are bringing to the team, more and more perspective athletes have been looking into possibly becoming a part of Seton Hall’s tennis program.
After the West Point invitational, the team will prepare to travel to Annapolis, Maryland for the Navy and Gold Invitational, their first mid-Atlantic tournament.
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Olivia Mulvihill can be reached at olivia.mulvihill@student.shu.edu.
