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Long Beach State University Athletics
Beach Tennis Reveals 2016-17 Schedule
8/30/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Long Beach, Calif. - Head coach Jenny Hilt-Costello has finalized the Beach Tennis schedule for the 2016-17 season, revealing another strong slate of matches at Rhodes Tennis Center. The schedule features a total of seven teams that were ranked at the end of last season, with six of those teams coming to play in Long Beach.
"It's going to be a strong schedule," Hilt-Costello said of this year's slate. "I think it's a strong, well-balanced schedule for a team of veterans and freshmen. We have both ends of the spectrum this year, but we have very talented freshmen."
The Beach will look to defend their third consecutive Big West regular season title, and continue a 28-match conference winning streak in the new season. Along with a challenging non-conference schedule, Hilt-Costello expects the Big West competition to be solid this season, and in future seasons as well.
"The Big West is coming along as a conference," she said. "We have several strong teams in our conference, and at any point we can have four to five of our teams at a time in the national rankings."
Long Beach State opens its fall schedule at the UNLV Tournament in Las Vegas, Sep. 23-25. The first home event for the Beach is Oct. 7-9 at the Beach Tennis Fall Tournament at Rhodes Tennis Center. The fall season concludes Nov. 11-13 at the CSUN Fall Tournament in Northridge.
In 2017, the Beach returns to action Jan. 20-22 for the Beach Tennis Winter Classic as a final tune-up for the dual match schedule. LBSU plays its first two matches on the road, Jan. 27 at Loyola Marymount, then the Big West opener Feb. 4 at UC Riverside. The Beach makes its home debut against CSUN on Feb. 11 at Noon, then welcomes in San Francisco the next day.
After a trip to San Diego State (Feb. 17), the Beach heads to Hawai'i for a pair of matches. First, LBSU plays a neutral-site contest vs. BYU (Feb. 24) then a true road game in conference action vs. the host Rainbow Wahine (Feb. 25).
In the month of March, LBSU has a six-match homestand from Mar. 11-30. During that part of the schedule, the Beach will host five straight ranked teams: No. 75 UT-Arlington (Mar. 15), No. 72 Yale (Mar. 17), No. 45 Dartmouth (Mar. 23), No. 50 Denver (Mar. 26), and No. 60 Brown (Mar. 30). In the very next match, the Beach heads to No. 9 Pepperdine on Mar. 31 to start off a three-match road trip.
The final weekend of the season could be a very important one at Rhodes Tennis Center, with Cal Poly and No. 56 UC Santa Barbara visiting Long Beach Apr. 14 and 15, respectively. The Beach played a thrilling match in Santa Barbara last season, beating the Gauchos 4-3 to help secure another conference title.
