Women's Tennis

MWC Women's Tennis Team Tournament Set for Thursday

Contact: Heather Benning, Executive Director, 920-430-0934

GRINNELL, Iowa - This Thursday the top women's tennis teams in the Midwest Conference (MWC) will compete for the league's Automatic Qualifier to the NCAA DIII Women's Tennis Tournament.

Those teams finishing regular-season Conference play among the top four of ten sponsoring institutions earn the opportunity to compete in a semi-final/final tournament at Nielsen Tennis Center on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This year's field includes Grinnell College, Cornell College, Lake Forest College and St. Norbert College.

Grinnell College is the 2017 MWC Champion and enters Thursday's event undefeated in league play. Coach Paige Madera's Pioneers are 16-4 overall and ranked 19th in Central Region by Oracle/ITA. They are the No. 1 seed and will face the No. 4 seed, St. Norbert College, in the first of two semifinals. 

St. Norbert, the 2017 MWC Tournament Champion, represented the league in the NCAA Championships last spring. This year the Green Knights finished 6-3 in Conference play and are 15-11 overall. St. Norbert College is led by first-year Head Coach Maria Slusarek.

The other semifinal features No. 2 Lake Forest College and No. 3 Cornell College. The Foresters' sole MWC loss is at the hands of the undefeated Pioneers. They edged the Cornell Rams in a 5-4 victory to secure second-place during the regular season and finished with an 8-1 league record. Raquel Allen coaches the 20-2 Foresters.

Cornell College concluded the regular season with a 12-7 overall record and went 7-2 in league play. Suffering defeats to Grinnell and Lake Forest, Head Coach Peter Dumas and his Rams will need to avenge the Forester loss and win the tournament final to claim the school's first women's tennis berth to the NCAAs.

First serve of the semifinals will be at 11:30 a.m. while the finals will begin at 4:00 p.m.