The women’s tennis team has started off on the right note by picking up their first two wins of the season against Meredith and Virginia Union. In the ODAC preseason rankings, the Marlins were tabbed with the sixth ranking. This is a very young group for Coach Martin Perry. There are only two seniors on the roster, Lyric Hinton and Aubree Johnson.
Perry is entering his fifth season as the head coach of the tennis teams. He described that this team stands out more than his previous teams: “ In my opinion this is the most talented and deep team that we’ve had since I’ve been at VWU,” said Perry. The team is looking for newcomers to make a key contribution to this year’s team. “ The women’s team added four impact players in [Junior Makayla] Velic, [Freshman Alexa] Brewster, [Freshman Anna] Rogers, and [Freshman Maya] Brown,” said Perry.
Johnson explained how the ranking doesn’t reflect the strength of this group. “ We are seeded a lot lower than I think we are capable of. We have a lot of young but strong talent on the team. We are going to surprise a lot of teams,” Johnson said.
Perry talked about both teams as a whole. “Overall we’re working hard to become collectively tough. We feel that both teams have a strong skill set, but unless we become better competitors we will have difficulty reaching our goals and becoming the teams that we strive to be,” Perry said.
The young and ready group looks to keep their winning streak going in a home match against Emory & Henry on March 7.
Nicholas Mundy
namundy@vwu.edu
