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St. Cloud State University
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Women's tennis caps off season
SCSU ties old record for wins in a season at 21; looking ahead to postseason
By Ben Birnell
Published:
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
What do you do when your team goes 21-5 during the regular season and has a bright outlook on the postseason?
Well, if you're SCSU women's tennis head coach Larry Sundby, you keep practicing in quest of winning the NCC Tournament and hopefully gain an invite to the NCAA Championships.
Sundby and Co. finished off their regular season very strong, beating Minnesota State University, Mankato and the University of Minnesota-Duluth, 9-0 and 5-3. The Huskies made short work of the Mavericks, winning in straight sets to gain their 20th win of the season April 3.
The Huskies would get a little competition from UMD, but would eventually prevail as SCSU got strong play from St. Cloud native Nicole Lechner, their No. 3 singles player Sara Eull and No. 6 singles player Jodi Pease.
Senior co-captain Berit Merrill and Lechner won 8-6 in doubles and Eull and Courtney Hover played well at the No. 2 doubles. However, the Huskies dropped their final meet of the season in close fashion, 5-4 to St. Scholastica to bring their record to 21-5. The team's 21 wins tie the school record for most wins in a season. SCSU also won 21 times in 1999 and 2002.
Sundby explained why his team performed so well this season.
"We have good depth, good doubles teams and we can compete at all of the positions," he said. "Some years, you might have a couple strong players at the top, but you might have others that aren't going to win. We have players all through the lineup that can compete. There aren't many matches that we weren't in this year."
SCSU co-captain Alyssa Lauristen agreed with her coach's view on the roster.
"We all compliment each other at both ends of the lineup," Lauristen said.
Sundby isn't lying when he says his team is full of depth. Merrill gained her 100th career win in her match against St. Scholastica on April 5. Lechner and Eull lead the team in singles wins with 18 apiece. Eull and Hover also lead the club in doubles wins with 16, while only losing five matches themselves.
Going into the NCC Championships this weekend at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Sundby has high hopes for his team, but said it is going to be tough.
"We've got Northern Colorado [to go up against], they've won the conference 12 years in a row. We know they're going to be tough. North Dakota and UNO are also going to be tough. But I think we're going to be one of the top four teams and it's gonna be a real dogfight between all of us."
Merrill agrees with her coach's comments, saying she thinks the team is going to go into the tournament confident, but not over zealous.
"We had a few new players this year and we kind of had to adapt and adjust. But so far I think we've done a really great job," Lauritsen said. "For the NCC Tournament, we're trying to stay focused and hopefully just go out there and win."
Sundby is just happy that his team has performed so well this season, but says they have one more goal to meet. And that is to get a bid to the NCAA Tournament.
"It's always hard to set goals at the beginning of the season in terms of winning and losing," he said. "But 21 wins ties the school record and I think we've done everything we hoped and set out to do with this team. Hopefully we can bring back an NCC Championship."
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