Trinity Women's Tennis

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

Pumpkin Carving

Just getting together for a little Halloween fun. Some obvious pumpkin carving talent on display here!

Fall Season Recap

2011-11-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Trinity Women's Tennis Blog. This is long overdue, but just wanted to bring everyone up to speed on where the Women's program is headed.

First off, let me introduce myself. I'm Russell McMindes and just this fall I became the new Head Women's Tennis Coach. My assistant is my brother, Jacob McMindes. I was the Men's assistant coach for 6 years, then the head coach for the last 2. Jake has been my assistant both of those years and is invaluable to the success of the program. We were offered the chance to head up both programs and couldn't be more excited by this opportunity!

There were quite a few other changes taking place this fall as well. We'll start with the roster. We graduated 2 seniors from last year's team, Megan Jackson and Erin Jamison. With the rest of the squad returning, we added 2 newcomers, Mackenzie Knoop (Albuquerque, NM) and a transfer from Lee College, Stephanie Williamson (Katy, TX). These would prove to be valuable additions!

The fall season is always a bit of a whirlwind as its only 6 weeks. We only have 2 events during that time, the first being our annual Quad tournament. We played this year at UIW on account of our facility renovation being in progress (more on that later). The teams present were UIW, St. Mary's and us (I know that only makes a trio, but the Quad is the name of the tourney). We had very encouraging results throughout this event and you could see the girls were beginning to play with belief.

USTA/ITA Southwest Regional Championships

The main event was the USTA/ITA Southwest Regional Championships held in Tyler, Texas. The winner of this event becomes an All-American and qualifies for the National Small College Championships. The objective was to use this tournament to make a statement. The girls were up to the challenge. We swept the entire event! In singles, we ended up with an all-Trinity semifinals with Katie Griffith, Thavindra Ekanayake, Kylie Hornbeck, and Mackenzie Knoop. From there Mackenzie went on to claim the title without dropping a set throughout the tournament.

In doubles, there was quite a bit of excitement as we had 2 of the 4 semifinalist teams, Mackenzie paired with Stephanie Williamson and Katie paired with Kassie Seger. They were in opposite halves so they both would have to come up with victories to have another all-Trinity final. And thats exactly what they did! Katie and Kassie rallied back from a large deficit and clinched in an exciting tie-breaker. Mackenzie and Stephanie saw a lead disappear but then sealed the deal. So we now knew we would have a singles and doubles representative at the National Championships. Mackenzie and Stephanie went on to claim the doubles crown.

And as I said, we swept the event with Laura Roa winning B draw singles and Melissa Ponder paired with Michelle Gun-Munro to win the B draw doubles.

This was a great effort from the entire team. Without a doubt they left their mark on the tournament and made sure it was known they would be a presence in the spring. They'll have to use this boost to motivate throughout the off-season as the other teams at the tournament provided stiff competition and will no doubt be eager in the spring as well.

USTA/ITA National Small College Championships

With these results, Mackenzie and Stephanie moved on to Mobile, Alabama for the USTA/ITA National Small College Championships. This is really a unique and special event. At one site, they host the national championships for NCAA Division 2 and Division 3, NAIA, and JuCo. Each championship is made up of the 8 regional winners. The winner of each "divisional" championship then goes into a combined tournament known as the "Super Bowl". The winner of this then receives a wild-card entry into the NCAA Division 1 National Indoor Championships in Flushing Meadows. There's no other tournament like it.

What really adds to the drama is our region actually has to play a feed-in match against the winner of the northwest region to qualify for the final 8. We started with singles. Mackenzie was up against Alyssa Roberg from Whitman College. Mackenzie battled through the nerves and won in straight sets securing her spot in the top 8.

Just an hour later Mackenzie was back on the court with partner Stephanie to play the feed-in match against Whitman College yet again. This time against Roberg and Courtney Lawless. Our girls came up a bit short this time around. It was still an encouraging result to have 2 first year players represent Trinity at Nationals.

With her win, Mackenzie had now guaranteed herself 3 more singles matches. The journey began with a senior and 3 seed from Chicago, Kendra Higgins. Mackenzie competed well, but the experience of Higgins proved too much. Mackenzie's next match was against a very savvy Kalla Schaefer from Whitewater-Wisconsin. Schaefer played a very unorthodox style that required extreme mental fortitude from Mackenzie. Mackenzie got the job done and pulled through in 3 competitive sets. This gave her the chance to play for 5th place the following day. Next up was Sonja Meighan from Washington & Lee. It was a competitive match but the discipline of Meighan prevailed and Mackenzie claimed 6th place in the tournament. While a bit disappointing for Mackenzie, its important to maintain perspective that this was 6th place...in the COUNTRY! And as a freshman no less.

While we always hope to come away with titles, we were very encouraged by these results. We had first-years competing at the national level. They gained some much-needed experience and could see that this was a level they could attain. Sends them both into the off-season with great hunger for the spring season. We couldn't be more excited!

Upgraded Tennis Facilities

One last exciting change this semester was the complete renovation of our tennis facilities. We are fortunate to have 16 courts on campus comprised of 3 separate banks of courts. Our 2 two main banks were overhauled. The first was the bank of 4 previously known as Varsity Stadium. This stadium was the original stadium from the Division 1 days. They house countless memories such as handing John McEnroe his only collegiate loss. There was a lot of history here and it was important to restore them to their previous glory. The renovation included restoring the office, new fencing, new surface, new nets and net posts, new windscreens, new seats with a much nicer covering, and a first-rate electronic scoreboard. Pictures of the new Al G. Hill, Jr Stadium can be found here.

The more extensive project was renovating the previous Delavan Stadium. This was our bank of 8 courts where most of our Division 3 matches have been played. This was converted into a first-class facility. The layout has been adjusted to have the 8 courts separated into groups of 2, all new surfacing, new nets and net posts, new fencing, new windscreens, new stadium seating with incredible covering, professional grade lighting of all 8 courts, a new storage shed, and an incredible electronic scoreboard donning the name of the new facility: Butch Newman Tennis Stadium. This is a fitting tribute to our director of tennis. Quite an honor and we're thrilled to be able to call these facilities home. They wouldn't have been made possible without tremendous donor and alumni support as well as the support of our administration. Can't thank everyone involved enough for this upgrade. It shows they are committed to making sure Trinity remains an elite institution at all levels. Pictures of the new Butch Newman Stadium can be found here.

Well that should bring you up to speed. We're now in the off-season, which serves as a great time for the players to focus on their academics and making any improvements in their fitness and game. Its an exciting time to be part of Trinity Tennis and I hope you stay tuned for the spring season. Check back soon!

- Coach McMindes

Spring is here!! Let the matches begin.

2011-03-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

Well finally the weather has cleared and the matches have begun. As you can see from the picture with Paul, our trainer, the girls have been preparing for some long days and tough matches. The hard work seemed to pay off as the girls were able to play their first double header this past Saturday. Up first was Tyler Junior College, the # 1 NJCAA team in the country. Although, the team came up on the short side of things they were able to bounce back quite nicely against one of our crosstown opponents in St. Mary's. Up next is our trip to Cali. The competition will be quite tough, as the team will play Vassar, Pomona, Redlands, and Claremont. It will be a lot of fun and also give us a good indicator on where we stand in our Western region. Stay tuned for the results.

Coach Takao

Kicking off the year with Emilie Foster

2011-01-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

What a great way to start off the season, but with a talk from one of our Trinity Coaching legends, Emilie Foster. Emilie did a great job at providing the players with a history about Trinity tennis, sharing stories about some great matches against Stanford, UCLA, and USC, and of course all the hard work her players had to go through in order to be ready. From her conversations, I know Emilie ran a tight ship and I can see why the teams she coached were so successful at Trinity as they always worked hard and had fun.

After listening to Emilie, the girls went out to practice and had a great first day. They really worked hard and look ready to carry on the Trinity tradition.

Coach Takao

Springing into 2011

2011-01-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

Welcome back all and Happy New Year. It is hard to believe but it is that time again. The cooler weather is here and I am anxiously awaiting the return of all of our players. As you can see from this fall pic, we had some of our players abroad, but soon we will have all of them back and ready to spring into action. This year we will be opening up at home against Stephen F Austin on January 29th and then headed to windy, cold Baytown Feb 4-5th for our annual Lee Rebel Invitational. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year and will come out and support the Lady Tigers this Spring.

Coach Takao

2010-11-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

I admit I’ve been really bad about keeping up with the blog. School has been hectic this year, somehow managing to be even more time-consuming than my past three years—as if I thought that possible. So I’m writing now, long after fall season has ended, to introduce you to our new freshmen and update everyone on how our two fall tournaments went. We were fortunate enough this year to have five freshmen join the team, and I’m happy to say that they’ve all fit in well. Our team chemistry is amazing and with three of our other girls being abroad (shout out to Kass, Katie, and Ponder—we miss ya’ll), it’s been nice to have some new faces around.

The new freshmen also bring a more international feel to the team, especially our sassy Italian Lav. Lavinia Bendandi, or Lav as we all call her, is from Bologna, Italy and trained at Bollettieri’s before coming to Trinity. Michelle Gun-Munro, our tiniest freshmen (haha), is from St. Vincent in the Caribbean and plans to major in Biology at Trinity. To add to our now global team is Laura Roa from Calgary, Canada. Laura is from Colombia, having lived there for eleven years, but moved to Canada and plans to double major in engineering and math. Then there’s Kathleen Lundquist from Fort Worth, Texas (finally a Texas girl!) who wants to major in Chemistry. It’s also important to note that Kathleen, although a Texas girl, wears an LA Dodgers hat every day, completely disrespecting the Texas Rangers and how far they’ve come this season. Our fifth and final freshman is Kylie Hornbeck from Kansas City, Missouri who plans on studying engineering science. All of our freshmen are super sweet and so fun to be around. It truly is a blessing to have such positive, hard-working girls on the team and I can’t wait for spring season to start!

This year, we decided to try something new in terms of our fitness. Coach hired Paul, a cross-fit trainer who also works with the women’s soccer team and men’s baseball team here at Trinity. He made such an impact on the soccer team that Coach had to bring him over to help with tennis. As far as our workouts go, Paul’s hated amongst the majority of the team. “Burpies” are the most stomach-churning workout and the fact that he made us do hundreds of them on the first day was completely awful. He’s proven to be really helpful though, all of us are getting in great shape and we’ve seen vast improvements in our tennis game too. Also, we also don’t actually hate him.

Our fall season started off well. The quad tournament we host every year turned out to be a failure because of the weather. It rained all weekend and after playing a couple matches, we ended up cancelling the rest of the weekend, as the weather proved uncooperative. Luckily, the quad is our practice tournament so although it was unfortunate that we didn’t get to play as much as we would have liked, it was better that the rain occurred during this tournament rather than the ITA.

This year, the ITA tournament was held at Trinity. This is the big tournament of the fall season and we were all excited to compete against the other girls in the hopes of reaching the national tournament and All-American honors..
Even though no one won the tournament, the team considered it a huge success. With our top girls gone, the ones toward the middle of the lineup really stepped up and fiercely competed. This is a team to watch out for, we not only have hungry girls who have been here for a couple years, but we also have new players eager to prove themselves on the court. All in all, it was a great fall and hopefully the Spring will be even better. Erin Jamison

Fall season Wrap up

2010-10-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well the fall season is over and it looks like it is going to be an exciting year. Unfortunately, we fell short of having a player advance to the national site; however, we have added 5 new first years Michelle Gun Munro, from the Grenadine Islands, Lavinia Bendandi, from Dallas, TX, Laura Roa from Calgary, Alberta, Kathleen Lundquist from Ft. Worth, Texas, and Kylie Hornbeck from Kansas City, Missouri that should add some spark to our team. With a few players abroad and my seniors, Erin Jamison and Megan Jackson shining bright we should make a strong run for our conference title and hopefully return to the national tournament. Time will tell so check back in the Spring and see how the Trinity Tigers are doing.

Coach Takao

2010-05-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

Well the season has come to a close. I just am headed back from Fredericksburg, Virginia where my # 1 player, Katie Griffith, just lost to the runner up from Williams. It was great getting to see all the players and teams again. I know the year didn't end up quite like I or the team would have wanted as we lost in the semis to Sewanee; however, I know we will be back. Now it's time to prepare for next year and the incoming class. I must admit I am really excited for our future. Although, we will be young I know it will be a great spirited team and we will return to the national picture in due time.

Coach Takao

2010-03-24T10:15:00.000-07:00

Every year, the tennis team travels to Claremont, California to play the local schools. This tournament is always very important for our regional rankings and often determines whether or not we get into the national draw at the end of the season. The teams we played this trip were Carnegie Mellon, Pomona, Redlands, and Bowdoin. We always know going into California that the competition will be tough, but having never played Carnegie Mellon and Bowdoin before, we were a little unsure of what to expect from their teams. Overall, the trip was both fun and challenging. We met some great teams but were able to have fun and also learn from the experience.

Carnegie Mellon:
Our first match for the weekend, doubles started off slow. We didn’t exert the intensity needed to beat Carnegie Mellon and went down 0-3 in doubles. Knowing we are a singles-oriented team, we were confident that we could compete going into our singles lineup. Carnegie Mellon proved to be too strong for us. Although our singles players fought hard, we were only able to succeed at #4 singles, with Katie Budinsky pulling out the win. The final match score was 1-8. The team felt disheartened after the match, but was ready to start fresh with our next match.

Pomona-Pitzer:
Going into the match with Pomona, the team was apprehensive. Having played Pomona in the past, in addition to knowing their national ranking of #7, the team knew this match would be tough. Once again, the doubles lineups proved to be ineffective. We quickly went down 0-3 in doubles. Similar to the Carnegie Mellon match, our singles play was strong but not successful. Although many of the girls had close matches, our #3 and 4 singles players (Thavi and Katie Budinsky) were the only winners. The overall score was 2-7, with our freshman players earning the only 2 points.

University of Redlands:
Our match against Redlands was overall the best we’ve played as a team thus far this season. Although we went down 1-2 in doubles, the energy and intensity from our team was greater than it ever has been this year. Number 3 doubles won fairly easily and #1 doubles lost to a tough team. Our #2 team was left on (Erin and Megan) to try and clinch the extra point. Number 2’s lost in a close tiebreaker; although being down, the competitive atmosphere provided incentive for our singles players to clinch the win. Singles was equally as competitive. Our #5 and 6 players were the first ones off, winning both of their matches. Their wins helped make the score 3-2 with four matches left on. Number 2 singles won in straight sets while #3 and 4 singles both lost in the third set. The score was evened up at 4-4 with the deciding match being #1 singles (Katy Poettcker). Her match was well into the third set and she was eventually able to win 6-3. Overall, the team won 5-4 in a close but well-deserved match. Redlands was the team to beat, and succeeding in that goal was both fun and rewarding. In addition to winning, the girls were proud of how well they competed and felt encouraged by how mentally tough everyone seemed on the court.

Bowdoin:
The final match of the trip, the team was a little tired going into our match with Bowdoin. Having never played this team before, we were a little unsure of what to expect. The team was very tough. We came out ready to compete but unfortunately went down 1-2 in doubles. Their ultra aggressive play caught us off-guard and although the matches were fairly close, Bowdoin came out on top. It was similar play in singles. Although the Bowdoin girls weren’t very aggressive in singles, they did not miss anything. Our only two wins were from #2 Katie Griffith and #6 Kassie Seger. The final score was 3-6, fairing unsuccessfully against such a strong team.

Immediately after our Bowdoin match, the team hopped in the car to drive to Palm Springs. Katie Griffith’s mom had gotten us night passes to the Indian Wells Tournament and we were so excited to watch some professional tennis. As soon as we got there, we were able to watch James Blake and Andy Roddick play (and unfortunately lose) doubles. Being so close to such amazing tennis players was surreal, with most of us never having been to a professional tournament before. After Blake/Roddick, we sat in on Kim Clijsters’ match and lastly caught John Isner play Sam Querrey. The team felt honored to be surrounded by such wonderful athletes and cannot thank the Griffith’s enough!

Our next match is Friday, March 26 against Austin College in Georgetown, Texas. The next day we play Hendrix College and Southwestern University at the same site. Both the Trinity girls and guys’ teams will be there. If you can make it, we would love to have some support!

Erin Jamison

2010-03-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

March 6:
Hardin Simmons
Playing on our home courts, the team was excited to finally compete with D-III teams. As our other matches do not technically count toward our season’s record, we wanted to set the tone by winning our first D-III match. We succeeded in our efforts, beating Hardin Simmons 6-3. Doubles didn’t start off as strong as we hoped; the team went down 1-2, with #2 (Griffith and Jamison) pulling out the only win. Since our team is a predominantly strong singles team, we went into singles confident that we could win 4 more points. The team played well and we were able to win almost every singles match, but barely lost a 3 set match at number one.

Schreiner
The second home match of the day was against Schreiner. The match went very well, with the final score being 9-0 and our Div III record improving to 2-0. We now get ready to head to Cali for some tough regional and national matchups and then to Indian Wells to watch the pros. I will be back to let you know how it goes.

Erin Jamison

2010-02-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

This year the women’s tennis team wanted to keep all of our friends and family updated on our busy (yet fun!) spring season. We have played seven matches already and are so excited for our upcoming California trip. The season has started off well; we have a deep team and love our new freshman players! We have yet to play a D-III team but have gained a lot of practice and experience from playing the tougher teams like Lee College and Texas State. Our official D-III season will start on March 6th when we play Hardin Simmons and Schreiner at home.

The doubles line-up at this point in the season is:
1. Katy Poettcker and Thavi Ekanayake
2. Erin Jamison and Katie Griffith
3. Kassie Seger and Katie Budinsky

Our singles line-up is:
1. Katy Poettcker
2. Katie Griffith
3. Thavi Ekanayake
4. Katie Budinsky
5. Megan Jackson
6. Kassie Seger

Below is a recap of the matches we have already played.

Baytown Trip (Feb. 5 and 6):
Texas A&M Prairie View
Our first match started off well with the doubles. Numbers 2 and 3 doubles both won easily. Jamison and Griffith beat their team 8-5 while Seger and Budinsky pulled out a win by default. We felt confident going into singles but Prairie View surprised us with their tough singles play. The match came down to the last one with Megan Jackson being the deciding match. Unfortunately, she lost in the third set 10 point tiebreaker 11-9 and we lost 5-4.

Tarleton State
Our match against Tarleton State was, to put it bluntly, disappointing. After a long day against Prairie View, we had to then play Tarleton. Our team seemed drained and the competitive nature we usually exude was unfortunately not present against this team. We immediately went down 0-3 in doubles. Singles moved equally as fast with Tarleton winning the first three matches. Our 4,5, & 6 singles matches were stopped as it was past 11:00 at night and below 40 degrees. Let us say, that we were frozen, tired players, but we knew it would prepare us for the rest of the year.

Lee College
Lee College, the defending junior college national champions, obviously has a very deep team. Doubles came out firing though. Our #3 team quickly beat their opponents while our #1 team lost a tough match. Number 2 doubles played a challenging match, barely losing 6-8 in the pro-set. In singles, Lee captured the first 4, however, Megan and Kassie both had great wins at the #5 and #6 spots so the final score was 6-3 in favor of Lee.

Feb. 13 and 14:
Texas State
We traveled to Texas State in San Marcos on Saturday to play the D-I team. The Texas State girls were some of the strongest players we have seen thus far. We went down 0-3 in doubles, despite tough doubles play. Singles was a similar story. Although we all competed strongly, the team unfortunately lost 1-8 to Texas State. Our win came from the #6 spot with Kassie Seger winning in a thriller 2-6,7-5,(10-7) .

Tyler Junior College
At our home match on Valentine’s Day, we once again encountered a strong nationally ranked Junior College team in Tyler. They are currently ranked # 2 in the country and definitely proved why. Their doubles came out strong and swept us; however, in singles the team competed strong, but Tyler was too much and took all 6. Although, we went down 9-0, we learned a lot and know that we are going to have to put more work into our doubles and singles play.

February 16:
St.Edward’s
Against St.Edward’s most of us were in class, so we got to use 10 of our players. Unfortunately, we still lost all nine matches, however, many of them were close and we learned that we have to be more prepared even when we have matches on class day.

February 20:
Incarnate Word
The so-called “Newman Cup” was an interesting match at home on Saturday. Our doubles started off strong. Although we went down 1-2 after doubles, our #3 team was right there, almost winning the extra point. We gained a couple more wins in singles. Katy Poettcker, after winning the first set, received a default from her opponent. Also, Kassie Seger managed to pull out another win at #6 in a third set tiebreaker.

Thanks for all of the support! We will be sure to keep ya’ll updated on our matches. This weekend is our off weekend but we will resume play at Trinity on Saturday, March 6. For anyone who can come out and support, both the guys and girls’ teams would really appreciate it!

Until then stay warm.
Erin Jamison

Women Tiger Tennis finishes strong

2009-12-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

Hello all and welcome to the Trinity tennis family. The fall season started off great with us being able to host our quad tournament against UIW, St.Mary's, and Laredo Community College. The girls did great as we had our top 3 players make it to the final four and then 2 of them make it to the finals and compete against each other. We then got to host our ITA Southwest regional tournament, where we hosted players from 10 different universities. At the beginning of the tournament, we entered 10 singles players and 5 doubles teams into the A draw only to end up having an all Trinity semifinal in singles and having one of our doubles teams upset the # 1 seeded team from Hardin Simmons in the doubles final. Overall, I would say things are looking very bright for Trinity tennis. Although young, the returnees as well as the new additions look to get us back into the hunt and compete with all the other teams in the country. I guess only time well tell. Come back and check us out in the Spring!
Coach Takao