Coming off a 7-0 shutout at the hands of No. 26 Indiana University, the Ball State University women's tennis team plays host to Youngstown State University on Saturday at the Muncie YMCA Tennis Center.
Head coach Kathy Bull said she hopes the Cardinals (3-3) will be back in full force after battling through injuries and illnesses.
"We've been kind of nicked-up and banged-up and sick the last couple of weeks, so we're trying to back to our normal lineup," Bull said. "I'm hoping that we go out and play good, strong doubles. And I just want to go out and have a really good, strong singles performance from top to bottom."
Cardinals' freshman Hayley Hall, who is 5-3 in singles and doubles play this season, is expected to be back in the singles lineup after recently battling through a back injury, Bull said.
"Hayley's making some good progress," Bull said. "We're counting on her being in the singles lineup on Saturday and hopefully in about another week or so being back to doing double duty again."
The Penguins (2-4), who finished 4-16 last season and placed sixth in the Horizon League Championships, are coming off a 4-3 win against St. Bonaventure University on Sunday.
Sophomore Anna Volkova, a Marshall University transfer, leads Youngstown State with a 6-5 combined singles and doubles record this season, including a 4-2 mark at No. 1 singles. Volkova has a three-game winning streak.
"Tennis is one of those unique sports," Bull said. "It's six individuals and you never know how each of them are going to play when you match up your six, so it's a little bit different than most of the other team sports. What we have to do is we have to be at the top of our own game and then everything can fall into place."
Ball State has enjoyed some success against Youngstown State in recent years. In 2006, the Cardinals won in a 7-0 shutout, and in 2005, Ball State won 6-1.
Seniors and team captains Jennifer Pollack and Haly Calderwood said they use their past success as extra motivation.
"Having a previous win against a team does boost confidence," said Pollack, who is 3-1 in her career against the Penguins. "Every match is different and has different situations. Youngstown probably has a very different team compared to when we played then my sophomore year, as do we."
Calderwood said it is hard to judge a team by past matches.
"Being one of the older players on the team, you generally try to think back about past experiences and evaluate what the team was like," said Calderwood, who is 4-0 in her career against Youngstown State. "However, it's always hard as teams and lineups change from year to year, so you never quite know."
Saturday's match starts at 1 p.m.
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