Weeks of preseason preparations are officially over with the start of the season for the Ball State University women's tennis team.
The Ball State Invitational starts today and concludes Saturday at the Cardinal Creek Tennis Center and Northside Middle School.
The two-day event is the first match for the team in the 2008-09 season and is its one home event during the fall season. The Cardinals finished last season with a 2-6 record in the Mid-American Conference, 9-10 overall, finishing the season with a loss to Miami University in the conference tournament.
The Ball State Invitational has four singles and four doubles flights, in a pool-play format. Two players from each team can be in each flight. Although this is the first official match of the season, it's not solely about the players representing their school, coach Kathy Bull said.
"The goal is simply to get in the most matches as humanly possible in a span of 48 hours," Bull said.
This is the 21st year in Bull's tenure at Ball State, where she has accumulated a 229-195 record. Under Bull, the Cardinals have placed in the top three in the MAC five times and have been named to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's All-Academic Team 10 consecutive years.
Bull said she is looking for one thing in particular in this first match of the season.
"Hopefully we find who are the raw competitors, who can fight the adversities of a match, and fight through it and get things done," Bull said. "We have a lot of raw talent."
Sophomores Hayley Hall, Georgina Thomson and senior Rachel Surowiec are the three returnees to the nine-player roster. Hall and Thomson received individual Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar Athletes accolades last year.
Alongside the returning players, freshmen Dena Boulieris, Sarah Hebble, Kylee Johnson, Kristin McKinney, Hanna Ohman and Kimberly Robbins fill the remaining roster for the Cardinals.
Bull said a lot of teams they will face this year have more experience. Hopefully this first match with her young team will give it a fair amount of collegiate experience, she said.
Schools that are competing alongside Ball State at the invitational include Northern Illinois University, Butler University, IPFW, IUPUI, University of Dayton, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Bradley University and Wright State University.
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