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Long Beach State University Athletics
2011-12 Long Beach State Tennis schedule announced
5/24/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
May 24, 2011
Long Beach, Calif. - Head Women's Tennis Coach Jenny Hilt-Costello has released the 2011-2012 schedule for Beach Tennis, featuring 14 ranked opponents, as well as a first-time Winter Invitational to be held at the Rhodes Tennis Center.
During the fall, the 49ers will travel to the Cal NIKE Invitational in Berkeley, Calif, as well as the Fullerton Invitational and finish the fall campaign with the ITA West Regionals. Senior Anais Dallara is also expected to earn an invitational to the ITA All-American Championships in singles, one of the four collegiate "major" tournaments.
"Anias had a tremendous season and has taken her physical and mental play to a new level. She is very deserving of an invitation," said Hilt-Costello regarding Dallara.
The 49ers will open the 2012 spring schedule hosting the inaugural Beach Tennis Winter Invitational. A four-team invitational with Nevada, Cal State Northridge and Loyola Marymount along with Long Beach State, the Beach Tennis Winter Invitational will not have team scoring, but instead each team will play singles and doubles in a round-robin format, with championships named in each flight.
"This tournament counts as just one match date for each team, yet provides us with three days of good tennis prior to the start of the dual match season," explained Hilt-Costello. "It is essentially the same as spring training. We decided to change our approach to the early portion of the season to be better prepared, and have had a lot of interest from schools nationally for participation in future seasons."
Following the Winter Invitational, Long Beach State begins their dual match season that features 14 teams that are currently ranked. Teams scheduled to visit the Rhodes Tennis Center in 2012 include five ranked non-conference opponents in San Diego State, Sacramento State, Purdue, Nebraska, Dartmouth, as well as Big West opponents Pacific, Cal State Fullerton, UC Davis and UC Irvine.
Long Beach State will also travel to Las Vegas to face a trio of ranked opponents, playing at UNLV and facing Utah and Texas Tech in neutral site action. The 49ers also close out the regular season by facing Pepperdine in a rematch of this year's first-round NCAA contest.
"This is a tremendously deep schedule that will test and prepare us for the end of the season run," said Hilt-Costello. "We reached our peak right at the end of the season this year and this schedule is set up to provide the squad that opportunity again next season."
The 49ers will be defending their 2011 Big West Title in 2012 while they seek a conference-record ninth crown, while also making a run at their ninth NCAA Tournament appearance.
Players Mentioned
