SAN ANTONIO – No. 15 Trinity University Women's Tennis welcomes fellow ranked opponents No. 26 Johns Hopkins University (MD) and No. 24 Colby College (ME) later this week for another pair of NCAA III matches, making that five in a row against nationally ranked teams.
The Tigers (8-3, 2-0 SCAC) posted a narrow 5-4 loss against last year's national runner-up, No. 1 University of Chicago, marking their first NCAA III defeat of the season. Following their match against the Maroons, Trinity bounced back to add two more wins to their record with a pair of 6-3 victories over No. 21 University of Mary Washington and No. 22 Washington & Lee University in Virginia last weekend.
SCAC Players of the Week:
After a week off, Trinity earns yet another weekly honor from the SCAC after the standout performances from
Brooke Belitz (Scottsdale, Ariz. / Notre Dame Prep) and
Ellie Hughes (Austin, Texas / Vandegrift) who went 3-0 as a doubles team from line three this past week.
In their match against Chicago the duo gave the Tigers the lead with their 7-4 tiebreaker win from line three. The pair's 8-3 win against Mary Washington kept the Tigers from getting swept and sparked the team's 6-3 victory. This is Belitz and Hughes' first time earning SCAC accolades as a doubles team, though Hughes was selected for the honors once in the 2021-22 season with then-partner sophomore
Sam Miller (Georgetown, Texas / Georgetown).
NCAA III Rankings: New ITA Rankings in the Works
The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) will announce its updated regular-season team rankings for NCAA III on March 24, along with updated singles and doubles individual rankings for the first time since the conclusion of fall competition.
The Tigers moved up to No. 15 in the rankings released on March 10 thanks to their strong start on the spring season.
Preview: More Ranked Opponents Head to San Antonio
The Tigers will be hosting No. 26 Johns Hopkins on Thursday (6:00 p.m.) and No. 24 Colby on Friday (6:00 p.m.).
On the Blue Jays: Johns Hopkins (5-3) has won four of its last five matchups, its only loss being a narrow 5-4 edge-out to No. 25 New York University. Similar to the Tigers in their match against the Maroons, JHU took the 2-1 advantage coming out of doubles but the Violets ended up victorious. The Blue Jays' most recent weekend of competition, at the beginning of March, resulted in a pair of sweeps to improve their season conference record to 3-0.
Johns Hopkins currently has two first-years ranked nationally– Jay Xiao in 27
th and Kamila Wong in 36
th – both of whom are also ranked in the top 10 in the ITA's Atlantic South Region. The two first-years have been competing together as a doubles team and are ranked 9
th in their region.
The Tigers and Blue Jays have met three times in the last decade, and currently Johns Hopkins leads with an overall 2-1 record. The two teams have not faced each other since March of 2019 where JHU narrowly beat Trinity 5-4, a much closer score than the Tigers' 8-1 win in the spring of 2017.
On the Mules: Colby (3-2) dropped its first two matches of the spring season with a 7-2 loss against No. 23 Hamilton College (NY) and a 6-3 loss against No. 7 Amherst College (MA).
The Mules have since turned the tide with three wins in a row, their latest being a clean sweep over another SCAC competitor, Texas Lutheran University. Colby also won its first home matches of the spring in a pair of 8-1 victories over No. 19 Brandeis University (MA) and No. 37 Wellesley College (MA).
This Friday will be the first time for the Mules to face the Tigers in regular season play.
Looking Ahead: More SCAC and Ranked Competition Ahead
No. 15 Trinity Women's Tennis will host another weekend of NCAA III play on April 2 against Austin College (10:00 a.m.) for its third SCAC regular-season contest, as well as No. 28 University of Texas-Dallas (3:00 p.m.).
The Tigers will visit No. 18 Southwestern University on April 7 for another SCAC matchup, followed by a trip to Missouri to face No. 17 Washington University of St. Louis on April 14.
