Men's Tennis Hosts Gonzaga to Open WCC Play

Live Video I Live Stats

PORTLAND, Ore. --- The Portland Pilots men's tennis team will open West Coast Conference play by hosting the Gonzaga Bulldogs on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Louisiana-Pacific Tennis Center. The Pilots enter the match with a 5-4 record, while Gonzaga comes in with an 8-5 mark.

"Time-wise we are more than half-way through the season," Portland head coach Aaron Gross said. "But competition-wise we still have a ton of tennis to play. I think our non-conference schedule prepared us well for what is to come. We have always had good success against Gonzaga, but there have been a couple of matches that have come right down to the wire in the last few years. We definitely respect their program and I feel very good that our veteran team doesn't take anyone for granted. We will come ready to play on Saturday."

Saturday's match opens a five-match homestand over the next ten days, including three league matchups.

"We take each day one at a time, but it is hard not to look at the next 10 days and feel really excited about our opportunities," Gross continued. "After Gonzaga we have Hawaii, Pacific, Saint Mary's and then Idaho in that span. They will all be tough, competitive matches. These are the type of matches where as a coach you hope that all of the little attention to detail that we try to put in from early September through whenever the most recent practice was- pays off. Every inch of lowness we can get on a volley, or revolution of spin we can get on a second serve is accounted for at this point. Now we just go out there and try and enjoy the competitive process of working through tight matches."

Portland has won five of its last seven matches, including a road split last weekend with a win at UT Arlington and loss at SMU.

"I say it quite a bit – if you can't embrace the queasy feeling you get in your stomach when you are trying to close out a hard-fought match, then you shouldn't be playing. That queasy feeling is what signals our investment to the craft of being as good a player as you can be. We try to embrace that."

All Portland home tennis matches will have free live video and live statistics this season.