By Nicholas Moreano
The Iowa women’s tennis last competed in a tournament on Oct. 15 at the Central Regionals, but it is prepared to have a strong outing to conclude its fall season at the Kitty Harrison Invitational at the University of North Carolina.
It will be exactly 20 days from the last day of the Central Regionals to the start of the Kitty Harrison Invitational, but head coach Sasha Schmid has been impressed with how her team has stayed focused.
“We practiced really hard,” Schmid said. “There was probably only one day that we had to get on them to get the level back up, but other than that, we sustained about 14 good practices.”
The tournament will begin on Friday with doubles matches against William & Mary and singles matches against North Carolina. Saturday’s matchups will consist of doubles matches against Eastern Carolina University and singles matches against Texas. The tournament concludes on Sunday with the Hawkeyes facing Duke in singles.
The Hawkeyes will have Zoe Douglas, Elise Van Heuvelen, Anastasia Reimchen, Adorabol Huckleby, Kristen Thoms, Aimee Tarun, Montana Crawford, and Carin Runefelt participating in singles and doubles matches.
Also competing in the tournament is senior Natalie Looney, who tore an ACL in the spring of last season. She will be making her fall season début in doubles matches.
The Hawkeyes know how important it is for the team to end the fall season on a high note.
“I want to have a strong finish to the fall season,” Reimchen said. “You know we’ve been working on so many things, and I just want them to be visible in our last tournament.”
The Hawkeyes have been working on many things this season and have seen the growth on and off the court from the beginning of the season. Schmid said she has reflected just how much her team has grown since the start of September.
“I’m really proud of where they are as a team from a fitness standpoint,” Schmid said. “The greatest improvement is the depth and complexity of our points.”
Schmid addressed how the fitness of her team has improved throughout the season and Crawford believes that she is at her best physical conditioning she has ever been.
It hasn’t just been the physical conditioning that has improved, but the chemistry throughout the team as well.
“To be honest, we have bonded with the coach more,” Reimchen said. “I think everybody on the team is closer and when we are close we work together better and we play together better.”
The 2016 season started with the team having to get used to their new coach and the team has rallied around Schmid. One of Schmid’s goals heading into this season was to instill confidence into her players and after three tournaments the Hawkeyes have that confidence, something that was absent a season ago.
Now Schmid’s Hawkeyes believe they can compete with the best of teams.
“I think we will definitely have very competitive matches with them and I think we can definitely get some wins,” Crawford said.