The No. 51 BYU men’s tennis team is looking forward to extending its four match win streak Friday at home against regional rival Boise State.
BYU has had the upper hand on the Broncos the past few years. Boise State (7-4) is coming off three consecutive losses over the weekend in the Blue-Gray Classic in Montgomery, Ala., against three top-ranked teams. Boise State will face off with Utah State Thursday before coming to Provo to take on BYU.
“Boise State always gets our attention,” Warren said. “They’re always a big regional rival and I know all our guys are very excited about it.”
After a slow start, the Cougars have improved to 7-5 and sophomore Patrick Kawka said the team is happy with its improvement and they way they’ve come out on top in close matches.
“We started out a little rough so getting to be more consistent and getting these wins in a row is a plus for our team and we’re all feeling more confident,” Kawka said.
With the team being so young, Warren said these recent wins have been important to the freshmen and, as a whole, the team’s confidence.
The Cougars and Broncos hit the courts at 5:30 p.m. on Friday on the indoor tennis courts. Admission is free and pizza will be provided for Cougar fans.
The BYU women’s tennis team continue it’s month-away-from home in Texas for a three-match week.
Thursday the team takes on No. 28 Texas A&M. Friday the Cougars will turn their sights on No. 68 Rice University and will finish the weekend on Saturday against No. 57 Southern Methodist University.
The Cougars are coming off tough losses to Washington State and Idaho last week, but the players said they learned a lot from those matches to help them improve.
“We’re trying to implement a couple things for this weekend and we’re making some changes,” senior captain Megan Price said.
The Cougars are facing a long week of practice and tough competition. Texas A&M hasn’t dropped a match since losing their first of the season back on Jan. 28, and Rice University is coming off a 5-2 home win over No. 35 Oklahoma, while SMU is coming off a 4-3 win over No. 40 Princeton.
Despite what these teams look like on paper, Price said the team isn’t focusing on that.
“We’re just as good as they are, ranking in tennis goes up and down all the time,” Price said.
BYU coach Lauren Jones-Spencer said the team is focused and looking forward to the challenge in these three matches.
“We have nothing to lose against these teams,” Jones-Spencer said. “We just take one match at a time. We’re trying to focus on one at a time, not thinking too much about every match because it becomes overwhelming.”
Thursday’s match begins at 6 p.m. CST, Friday’s at 11 a.m. CST and the final match on Saturday will begin at 2 p.m. CST.
