Men's Tennis Opens Dual Season in SeattleLive Video The Portland men's tennis team will kick off its 2015 spring season with a pair of dual matches in Seattle this weekend. The Pilots will take on Seattle University on Saturday at 10 a.m. and then No. 68 East Tennessee State on Sunday at 2 p.m. Both matches will be played at the Nordstrom Tennis Center on the University of Washington campus with free live video coverage.
"This weekend not only marks the beginning of a new season, but also a new era for our program," said Portland head coach Aaron Gross, the reigning West Coast Conference Coach of the Year. "We graduated four incredibly important guys last year and they happened to be four of our top six players for the previous four years.
"Last year's success was a culmination of a ton of hard work by those guys and the coaches, plus the coaching staff had to focus on recruiting to replace those guys, which I think we did a great job with. However, six of our top eight players at this point have never played a college dual match. It is a bit scary, but also full of possibilities. I don't think most of our guys are going into matches this spring with preconceived ideas on who they should or shouldn't beat."
Gross guided the Pilots to a 13-9 overall record and 5-4 mark for third place in the WCC last season. The team finished the season ranked No. 75 nationally. Senior Reid deLaubenfels will look to anchor the Portland lineup after a very successful first year with the Pilots in 2013.
With the graduation of four key players, Gross reloaded with six freshmen and graduate transfer, Steffen Dierauf. The newest addition to the lineup is Michail Pervolarakis, a freshman from Cyprus that joined the program earlier this month. The five other freshmen competed this fall to get their first taste of Division I tennis.
"Nearly every player on our team would like to be a professional after they are done with college and they know that every competitive opportunity is a chance to get better," Gross continued. "With a young team like this I don't think they will differentiate between a match against a team that we are pretty familiar with like Seattle U. or a team we know nothing about in East Tennessee State, which happens to be a very solid ranked team. I don't think we are likely to differentiate between non-West Coast Conference and WCC teams and I love that. I think conference play is fun and exciting, but I think if you are great competitor you see every competitive opportunity as the most important match of the season. I think our young guys have that hunger in them to look at tennis and their development that way.
"Our guys work extremely hard on their games on a daily basis. As coaches we know there are going to be growing pains, but we feel the most important thing is to keep pushing that huge, heavy boulder up the hill day-after-day and then enjoy the feeling of letting go on the other side and watching the boulder pick up momentum on the way down as we keep improving. I hope we will see that boulder rolling down the hill this year sometimes, but know in the next few years that we are going to see some special things from this group. So, bottom line is yes, we are very much looking forward to getting on the courts in Seattle this weekend and pushing our limits."
ABOUT SEATTLEThe Redhawks (1-1) opened the dual season with a 7-0 loss at ranked Oregon, before bouncing back for a 5-2 win against Eastern Washington in Eugene on Jan. 11. Seattle U. will face the Pilots Saturday morning and then Wisconsin later in the day.
ABOUT NO. 68 EAST TENNESSEE STATEThe Buccaneers (0-2) opened the season with losses to a pair of ranked opponents falling to No. 72 North Florida 4-0 and then No. 20 Wake Forest 7-2 last week… The Bucs play Washington Friday night before taking on the Pilots.
