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No. 32 ASU women's tennis prepared for San Francisco, No. 18 Pepperdine

ASU junior Desirae Krawczyk returns during the doubles clash with BYU’s pair of Mayci Jones and Toby Miclat on Feb. 14, 2015, at the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe. The match ended with the final score of ASU 7 BYU 6. (Shiva Balasubramanian/The State Press)
ASU junior Desirae Krawczyk returns during the doubles clash with BYU’s pair of Mayci Jones and Toby Miclat on Feb. 14, 2015, at the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe. The match ended with the final score of ASU 7 BYU 6. (Shiva Balasubramanian/The State Press)

ASU junior Desirae Krawczyk returns during the doubles clash with BYU’s pair of Mayci Jones and Toby Miclat on Feb. 14, 2015, at the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe. The match ended with the final score of ASU 7 BYU 6. (Shiva Balasubramanian/The State Press) ASU junior Desirae Krawczyk returns during the doubles clash with BYU’s pair of Mayci Jones and Toby Miclat on Feb. 14, 2015, at the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe. The match ended with the final score of ASU 7 BYU 6. (Shiva Balasubramanian/The State Press)

The No. 32 Sun Devils (4-2) have proven themselves capable of competing with tough competition early in the dual-match season.

However, as the team enters the most important stretch of the year, its players and coaches remain focused on the nearest task at hand, disallowing past results or future fixtures distract anyone from this weekend’s games.

The team will be playing on consecutive days for the first time this dual-match season this weekend, facing San Francisco and No. 18 Pepperdine.

Head coach Sheila McInerney is inviting of the high volume of games the team will be playing in a short amount of time during this upcoming stretch of the season. She said she thinks her team is excited to play.

“Once the season starts — the kids have been back since the beginning of January — you know, you’ve had enough practices,” she said. “Now it’s just a matter of match play, and we’ve got quite a few coming up in a row. I think that’s good. I think any competitor would rather play matches than practice.”

The team says the focus in practice hasn’t changed even though it will be playing two opponents in two days.

“We’re just really trying to stay prepared and make sure that we’re all healthy and that we’re ready to go this weekend,” junior Ebony Panoho said. “It’s our first double-header, so it should be good. I think that everyone’s really ready for this weekend.”

The routine hasn’t been altered too far from what the team is typically accustomed to, according to McInerney.

“At the beginning of the week you do some technique work and then at the end of the week you try to simulate match play,” she said. “It’s good for these kids to play two matches during the weekend when we haven’t done it for a while.”

ASU begins this portion of the year having won back-to-back games. The players weren’t shy in acknowledging how valuable picking up the wins were prior to this weekend.

Senior Joanna Smith said that the wins give the team confidence entering its busy weekend.

“I think moving forward the competition is getting tougher, so that’s something that I think we’re all embracing and looking forward to,” Smith said. “Every match is gonna be tough and I think that’s kind of what we all want it to be. We all want it to come down to that last match being us.”

While the team is facing San Francisco without having any experience against them before, last year the team lost to Pepperdine 1-6 in Malibu, California.

Although the team is looking to make amends for last year’s defeat to Pepperdine on Sunday, the attitude within the group remains to come away from this weekend successful in both matches.

“I think that we just all have to bring our A-game and we just have to be prepared because Pepperdine is a good team and you can say the same thing about San Francisco,” Panoho said. “We just have to be ready for them.”

Ahead of the match, McInerney was reverent of both teams.

“San Francisco is a good team that’s got some good players at the top of their lineup,” she said. “Pepperdine is very good. They’re ranked in the top 20, and they had a tough match against USC, and they beat us handily last year so we know that it will be a good match.”

She continued, explaining that gaining momentum from this weekend could be key to the squad’s future success.

“(After this weekend) we’ve got three matches the next weekend and then two the next, so now I think it’s just a matter of sort of getting into the swing of things and staying in a good rhythm,” she said. “Playing every weekend — you know, two or three matches — is really gonna help us.”

The team will take on San Francisco on Saturday at 12 p.m., followed by a matchup with Pepperdine on Sunday at 11 a.m. Both matches will be in Tempe.

 

Reach the reporter at kajone31@asu.edu or follow @kaelenjones on Twitter.

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