Lily Segal, Staff Photographer

After recording its first ever winning record, 6-3, in NESCAC conference play in the 2014-15 season, the women’s tennis team looks to build off last year’s success heading into the 2015-2016 season. In addition to the returning five sophomores—including Eudice Chong ’18, the top-ranked singles player in DIII tennis—the Cardinals have high hopes for first-year Victoria Yu ’19, who is currently ranked ninth nationally after the fall and indoor season, to have an immediate impact on the court.

“Last year was a historic kind of year for the program, and we are looking to build on that success,” said Coach Mike Fried, who is entering his fifth season as head coach of the men’s and women’s tennis teams. “We have one key first-year addition to the team that should make us an even stronger team, and we are looking to continue to grow with that year of experience under our belt.”

You will be hard-pressed to find a team younger than this years Cardinals squad, whose starting line-up includes only first-years and sophomores.

“I am very, very excited for us to have that kind of group to build with,” Fried said. “Certainly the flip side of that coin is a relative lack of experience compared to teams that are comprised of primarily upper classman. At the same time, Chong in her first year certainly showed composure beyond her years, and in what little time she has had to demonstrate similar maturity on court, Victoria clearly did the same thing this fall. The rest of the returning sophomores again did a great job last year and have that invaluable year’s worth of experience that I think will make us a more mature team than would appear on paper.”

With that valuable year of experience, the Cards believe they have what it takes to not only be one of the best teams in NESCAC but in the nation as well. Last season marked a turning point and a new chapter in the women’s tennis program as it returned to the NESCAC tournament for the first time since the 2007-08 season and beat Tufts 5-4 for the second time in program history. The only other time this occurred was in the first meeting between the two teams in 1999-00.

“We want to continue to grow as a team, to continue to build upon this transition and culture to a championship mindset, to a team that is doing everything that we need to do to be in a position to be a top NCAA team,” Fried said.

As we see throughout the history of sports, becoming a championship team usually takes time. That being said, there is no doubt that the Cardinals have what it takes to become a top-tier team and contend for a national title. For the 17th-ranked Cardinals, the road to Kalamazoo, Michigan, the site of this year’s NCAA DIII Championship, begins over spring break on their training trip to southern California where they look to scrimmage DI powerhouse Georgetown University before opening the regular season on Thursday, March 10 against 20th-ranked Case Western University. The Cardinals will quickly return to the courts the following day to take on 18th-ranked Redlands College, whom the Cards beat 5-4 in the first ever encounter between the two squads a season ago. They then wrap up their warm weather California trip with a match against a very competitive Washington University in St. Louis, who are currently ranked 13th, before returning back to Middletown.

“I think everyone really looks forward to the trip for lots of reasons. The weather in California, and a break from the intense academic workload for a little while is always nice, too,” Fried said. “In term of the tennis, most of the training will be a combination of acclimating to outside warmer weather tennis as opposed to the indoor tennis we have been playing, and working on small things that are kind of tent polls for everybody individually through the beginning parts of the season. These are three really key matches that will give us a sense of where we are, and if things go well, also put us in a favorable position in terms of the national rankings and the NCAA picture.”

On Saturday, March 19, just before the end of spring break, the Cardinals will hope to send an early message to the conference as they look to upend host and fifth-ranked Middlebury for the first time in over a decade. With a positive start to the season, this year’s team has the potential to go far in the NESCAC tournament and make a statement at the national level.