After the men’s tennis team opened Big Ten play with a resounding 5-2 win over the rival Cornhuskers Feb. 29 at the Hawkeye Tennis and Recreation Center, the Iowa women get their first taste of the conference competition March 8 when they travel to East Lansing to battle the Spartans.

Coming on the heels of a methodical 7-0 win over Northern Iowa on Feb. 29 at the HTRC —where the team didn’t drop a single set — the women’s squad is ready for to take on Michigan State.

“It’s big. It’s good confidence boost for everyone to be able to finish all the matches and go 7-0 today,” senior Elise van Heuvelen Treadwell – who didn’t even drop a game in her match — said following the win. “We’ve still got to learn from a couple things from today and just really get after it for Big Tens. I know we’re going on a stretch on the road, so we’ve got to be ready for that.”

The three-match road stretch — that won’t see the Hawkeyes back on their home courts until March 22 — includes Big Ten contests against Michigan State, Purdue, and Indiana.

The Hawkeyes enter conference competition with a 5-6 record this spring but have won three of their last four.

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On March 8, Iowa will face an 8-4 Spartan team that was on a six-match win streak before it ran into the buzz saw that is the 13th-ranked Princeton Tigers. Michigan State failed to get on the board, falling 7-0 to the Ivy League powerhouse.

Another Ivy League juggernaut will come to Iowa City this weekend.

After the Hawkeye men host Louisville at 5 p.m. tonight, the Cornell Bears will come to town for a showdown between nationally ranked teams.

In the most recent Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, released on March 3, Iowa is ranked 28th in the country while Cornell sits at 16th nationally.

Cornell leads the all-time series with Iowa 4-1 and the Hawkeyes have only faced Louisville twice but are 2-0 versus the Cardinals.

The Big Red enter the weekend 7-1 overall and 33-5 in singles matches this year, and they will face Drake in Des Moines before coming to Iowa City. Louisville is 9-4 this spring.

Iowa’s men are riding a three-match win streak and are 10-2 on the year.

“This is kind of how we planned our schedule,” head coach Ross Wilson said. “We were hoping to be 9-3, 10-2 going into this big weekend. Obviously, we know that Cornell is one of the top teams in the Ivy League, top-20 team in the country. And Louisville, coming from the ACC, a lot of good teams there, so the guys are really confident.”

“I think we’ve played really, really well in the doubles here the last few weeks and been able to pull off some singles wins in all six spots, so we couldn’t ask to be in a better spot confidence wise. The guys are motivated, and the guys are really ready to give their best effort here on Friday night.”