Women’s tennis team to compete in Patriot League Tournament starting April 23

This week, the women’s tennis team will be playing for its season and for the right to compete in the NCAA Tournament.

The team will wrap up its regular season starting April 23 with the Patriot League Championship. The four-day tournament will be held in Hamilton, New York, at Colgate University in the Joseph W. Abrahamson Tennis Courts. The team needs to win this tournament in order to move on to the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re so excited about the upcoming Patriot League Tournament,” sophomore Jamie Campisi said. “This is the best team we have had in many years and we have a very good chance of going farther in the tournament than we have in quite some time. The league is very dense this year, but we believe we can play with anyone in our conference and are looking forward to months of hard work hopefully paying off next weekend.”

With all nine Patriot League teams participating for the one automatic berth, or secured, spot in the NCAA tournament, there will be some challenging competition for the Lehigh women’s tennis team (10-8, 3-2 Patriot). During the regular season, the team was beat by Navy, Army and Boston University.

With only one more Patriot League opponent (Lafayette College) to play before the championship, the Mountain Hawks already have a good idea of where they stand in the tournament and what they need to do in order to succeed and get their spot in the NCAA tournament.

Senior Abigail Farrell said the team has a lot of confidence going into the Patriot League Tournament.

“This is the first year in a long time when we have a seed higher than five,” Farrell said. “So if all goes well we will definitely make it past the first round, something we have failed to do in my entire time at Lehigh. We have a chance to beat any team in the Patriot League if we all come together and play our best tennis.”

Last year, the women’s team had the No. 5 seed and lost to No. 4 seed Bucknell University in the quarterfinals. Bucknell ultimately lost to No. 1 seed Boston University in the semifinals, who won the overall tournament.

Lehigh’s younger players have made a strong impact this season, and their performance in the Championship is a story to monitor.

Freshman Christina Auyeung has had a solid first season as a Mountain Hawk and will likely be a challenge for her opponents this upcoming weekend. Her overall singles record is 8-2 this season, while her doubles record is 5-5.

Campisi is another impact player that Lehigh has relied on during the regular season. Last year, she went 4-0 in Patriot League singles during the regular season and 3-1 in Patriot League doubles. This year she has played No. 2 on the ladder regularly and also No. 2 in doubles. Her record going into the tournament is 6-6 in singles and 7-5 in doubles.

“We have incredible underclassmen that have fought hard this whole season to pull out big wins, for example, against Bucknell and Loyola,” junior Marian Prim said. “I think we have a great opportunity ahead of us to do extremely well against some tough teams. We have put in a lot of time and effort to prepare for the upcoming weekend. We are all excited to see what will happen and are looking forward to a positive, exciting end to the season.”