Feb. 28, 2013
THE FLATS – The Georgia Tech women’s tennis team will host North Texas and Miami of Ohio in a pair of matches this weekend. It will be only the second match all-time with North Texas and the first against Miami.
The Yellow Jackets enter the weekend ranked No. 41 and have a 3-4 overall record. The North Texas Mean Green boast a 6-2 overall record, with a win over 4-3 win over No. 30 Arizona last week, and are ranked No. 47. The Redhawks are 4-7 overall. Tech beat North Texas 6-1 on March 13, 2010, in their only previous meeting.
“These should matches should be good and really competitive,” head coach Rodney Harmon said. “It’s going to be a tough match with North Texas. They have a team full of foreign players that have done really well. We’re going to have to play well. We’re bringing a lot of confidence from our match at Georgia, but we have to be ready to go and compete and play hard. We have to establish the momentum and hopefully hold on to it for the entire match.”
The Yellow Jackets have won the doubles point in four of their seven matches this year. The freshmen duo of Kendal Woodard and Megan Kurey are 10-4 on the year and have a 6-1 mark in dual matches. The two are a perfect 6-0 at the No. 2 spot in the lineup.
Senior Elizabeth Kilborn heads into the weekend with nine singles wins this year and ranked No. 65. Woodard has climbed into the rankings at No. 104 after defeating Georgia’s No. 15 Maho Kowase last weekend. Woodard has a team-best 12 singles wins this year. Freshman Natasha Prokhnevska is second on the squad with 11 singles wins and Kurey also has nine wins.
“Right now Liz is playing very well,” Harmon said. “She has a tough road because she’s always playing No. 1 and always playing the other team’s best player. She is going into this weekend playing extremely well and I feel like she’ll play great on Friday and on Sunday.
“The freshmen have played great,” Harmon added. “They worked hard this fall. We made a lot of technical changes with each of them and it took some time for that to come together, but they have all embraced the changes and played well.”
Georgia Tech will resume ACC play next weekend when the Yellow Jackets host No. 15 Miami on Saturday, March 9, and No. 16 Florida State on Sunday, March 10.
“I think we have to keep the momentum and the intensity from court to court up high,” Harmon said. “The girls have been practicing really well. They’ve been hitting the ball well and doing the things in practice we’ve been asking them to do. We have to transition that to match play and get out there and compete well. We have a lot of good teams coming in and a lot of good chances to compete against highly ranked teams with very good players. It’s a great opportunity for us.”
Fans are encouraged to follow Georgia Tech women’s tennis on Twitter, @GT_WTEN, and like the Yellow Jackets on Facebook, GTWomensTennis, for an inside look at the program.
–RamblinWreck.com–
