• Home
  • Campus
    • Academics
    • Greek Life
    • SGA
    • Student Life
  • State/Local
    • Around Town
    • Board of Regents
    • National
    • Pierre
    • Vermillion City Council
    • Vermillion Police Department
  • Sports
    • Cross Country
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Men’s Basketball
    • Soccer
    • Swimming/Diving
    • Track and Field
    • Volleyball
    • Women’s Basketball
  • Verve
    • Feature
    • Diversity
    • Events
    • CAB
    • The Vault
  • Opinion
  • E-Edition
  • COVID-19
The Volante
The Volante
  • Home
  • Campus
    • Academics
    • Greek Life
    • SGA
    • Student Life
  • State/Local
    • Around Town
    • Board of Regents
    • National
    • Pierre
    • Vermillion City Council
    • Vermillion Police Department
  • Sports
    • Cross Country
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Men’s Basketball
    • Soccer
    • Swimming/Diving
    • Track and Field
    • Volleyball
    • Women’s Basketball
  • Verve
    • Feature
    • Diversity
    • Events
    • CAB
    • The Vault
  • Opinion
  • E-Edition
  • COVID-19
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
Home
Sports
Tennis

Tennis team gains experience in Florida

March 22nd, 2011 Kayla Prasek Tennis comments

Share this story

Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest

The University of South Dakota women’s tennis team spent its spring break in Florida, playing matches against five schools, coming home with three wins.

The women beat University of Southern Indiana 6-1, Saint Joseph’s University 4-3 and Robert Morris University 7-0. The Coyotes lost to St. John’s University 0-7 and James Madison University 0-7.

“When we played Saint Jospeh’s two years ago, they beat us 7-0,” head coach Malcolm Gilreath said. “This year we beat them 4-3, which is excellent, and it took a lot of work.”

Gilreath said these matches were stepping stones for the rest of the season.

“We won; we beat some Division I teams, so that brings a lot of confidence and shows that we are on the right path,” Gilreath said. “If you lose to a team 7-0 two years ago and then you beat them, it’s a compliment when they want to schedule you again, so that’s very positive. Our doubles also helped a lot last week.”

Junior Shadi Soleymani said that while the matches went well in Florida, she thought there were some doubles matches where the women could have done better.

“It went better and better for every match we played so that’s always good,” Soleymani said.

For sophomore Marina Kiefer, she said her matches went pretty well over spring break, with the exception of her last match where, she said, she was beaten pretty badly.

“One of the things we learned was how to fight and how to stay in a match,” Kiefer said. “We also figured out how to come back, and I think we really played our individual games well and we gained more consistency by playing towards our strengths, which will help us in our next matches.”

Soleymani said she is finally back to her match mentality after having surgery in October.

“The more I played, the better I was doing,” Soleymani said. “By the end of the week, I was back to my old game, which was nice.”

March 25-26 the women will head to Las Vegas, Nev., to play matches against Idaho State University, Southern Utah University and Seattle University.

Southern Utah is currently one of the top teams in the Summit League, so that match will be helpful for future meetings, Gilreath said. The team doesn’t know much about Idaho State, and the match against Seattle will go towards the Great West Conference seeding, he said.

“Seattle will definitely be a match we have to pay attention to,” Gilreath said. “They beat us last year 6-1, and it will be important because of the Great West Conference tournament.”

Although she said she didn’t know what to expect from Idaho State or Southern Utah, Soleymani said the team should be able to compete against Seattle, since they have played them before.

“I think we’ll be able to play really well against Seattle,” Kiefer said. “We played them last year and I had a close match with the number one or two. With our line up, I think we’ll be able to do well with them.”

The women will continue to work on their doubles and their hitting, Gilreath said, so they can be in position to get the first point in.

“It’s going to be very competitive at every position,” Gilreath said. “Each point is going to be important. We’re looking forward to it. We’ve never taken our team out to Las Vegas. We’ve been to the Air Force, and the altitude shouldn’t be as bad. The only thing we’ll be concerned with is the heat.”

The team will take their past mistakes to help them in future matches, Kiefer said.

“Each match from here on out will be tough,” Kiefer said. “We just have to play our best and do what we have to do to win.”

Share this story

Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest

Kayla Prasek

Related Posts

Uniting international student-athletes on new show 'Drop a Pin' Men's Basketball
November 2nd, 2020

Uniting international student-athletes on new show 'Drop a Pin'

Women's tennis seniors prepare for spring play Sports
September 20th, 2020

Women's tennis seniors prepare for spring play

Coyote tennis ends fall season at ITA Regionals Sports
October 21st, 2019

Coyote tennis ends fall season at ITA Regionals

Facebook Comments

Latest Stories

Jan 19th 10:51 PM
Campus

Charlie’s bookstore: now just a pickup window?

Jan 19th 9:21 PM
Campus

New president, vice president candidates announced at SGA

Jan 19th 2:24 PM
Sports

Coyote track and field starts strong in home invitational

Jan 19th 9:09 AM
Opinion

Be Your Own Personal Rockstar!

Jan 18th 11:55 PM
Opinion

Mental Health Sick Day: Break from the Stress

Jan 18th 7:37 PM
Sports

The youngest Plitzuweit, GVSU commit, notches 1,000 career points for VHS

Jan 18th 7:11 PM
Opinion

Editorial: These masks might not be comfortable, but they are necessary

Jan 18th 5:29 PM
Campus

A peek into an international student’s world

Jan 18th 5:27 PM
Campus

History Club set to start back up this semester

Jan 18th 4:05 PM
Campus

Clarinet Day will explore history, significance of clarinets

Weather

Coyote News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K7ERfZmFOg

Advertisement

  • Home
  • Campus
  • State/Local
  • Sports
  • Verve
  • Opinion
  • E-Edition
  • COVID-19
  • Back to top

The Volante

The Volante is the University of South Dakota’s independent student-run newspaper since 1887. Al Neuharth Media Center The Volante 555 N. Dakota Street Vermillion, SD 57069

Advertisement

About

  • About
  • Code of Ethics
  • History
  • Awards
  • Executive Staff
  • Jobs
  • Comment Policy
  • Advertise

Engage

  • Letters to the Editor
  • Contact Us
  • Submit an Overheard
  • Subscribe
  • Submit News Tips

Media Partners

  • Coyote News
  • KAOR 91.1
  • Media & Journalism Department
© The Volante 2015. All rights reserved.