After the Loyola Women’s Tennis Team’s first matches of the season at Bedford Cup, they jumped right back into it a week later, hosting the Rick McClure Tennis Invitationals at Ridley Athletic Complex. From Sept. 29 to Oct. 1, the girls went against Bucknell, Delaware State, and Lafayette College. Going in strong, Olivia Tracey ’24 and Liza Tankimovich ’26 won their doubles against Lafayette as well as their singles, putting Loyola 3-0 in the first round. Continuing through the three days of back and forth between each of the schools, the invitationals came to an end with Greyhounds, Tracey and Tankimovich, winning fourth overall in the tournament.
Tracey, the team captain, has been playing for Loyola all four years.
She said, “I’m proud of the way that people competed. Just pushing through after having a tournament last weekend and coming out and staying mentally strong and everyone on the team supporting each other and watching each other’s matches, I think that’s what really helped us out.”
Tired from the week before, the girls managed to keep up on the scoreboard, pushing each other to carry on.
Team captain Anna Rico ‘24, another senior at Loyola with a consistent record all four years, is still recovering from an injury. Even not being able to play, she still came out to support her team.
“It’s pretty good competition. We always have good school matches with Delaware State. Bucknell and Lafayette are some of our competitions from the Patriot League so it’s good to see some of the players that they have and get some matches in against them so we can see how we stack up against them for the spring season,” Rico said.
As the Patriot League season begins, Rico explained that it is always good to check out the competition and get a feel for the other teams. The Invitationals made that possible and helped Loyola to figure out what they needed to work on going forward.
Even with only a year at Loyola, Head Coach Josh Eventoff has had a distinguished record of coaching and managing many different tennis teams throughout the years. He said that they compete for every point as hard as they can.
“We’re trying to achieve our women staying healthy and strong enough to go multiple matches, days in a row, it’s very challenging so we work on conditioning and it’s telling me that we just need to keep training hard, and we have a lot to look forward to. Their doubles are so much stronger, and I’m really inspired by what I’m seeing this weekend. We’re going to keep building from this weekend and moving forward to make it a solid season,” he said.
This is only the start of the Loyola Tennis team’s season, and there is so much more coming. Their next matches will be against Howard and Towson at the Greyhounds Women’s Tennis Classic. Be sure to check them out from Oct. 13 to Oct. 15 as they head over to the McClure Tennis Center at Ridley Athletic Complex.
