Post-season Possibilities
April 06, 2005 11:15 AM | General
April 6, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University women’s tennis team is enjoying one of its best seasons in years mainly because of a talented seven-player freshmen class. One of those freshmen, Stacey Percival, has been able to forge a 10-3 singles record so far including a 4-1 mark in Big East action playing the No. 6 spot.
 |
||
| Stacey Percival is one of seven freshmen on West Virginia's roster hoping to lead the Mountaineers back into post-season play.
WVU Photographic Services/Brian Persinger |
Percival had an important role in the Mountaineers’ recent 5-2 victory over Rutgers, claiming a singles point with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Lauren Edelschein and also teaming with freshman Natalia Prinz to win their doubles match and help secure the doubles point.
The victory over the Scarlet Knights was West Virginia’s first since the 2001 season and catapulted the Mountaineers into contention for a Big East tournament berth.
“I was the first one done and I think Natalia clinched the win,” says Percival. “I remember I was so nervous at that point and I think she was winning pretty easily anyway in that second set. I didn’t know the rivalry there but our coach was really excited and our team was really thrilled.”
Percival admits the Rutgers match was, collectively, the team’s best performance of the year.
“Our last match against Rutgers was the best we’ve played so far,” she said. “We’re really coming together as a team. At first there was a little inexperience and the older girls knew how to play and how the college game is but we’re catching on, too.”
Big East rivalries are new to Percival, who grew up following the University of South Carolina’s program as a resident of Aiken, S.C. Her first love was horseback riding and she didn’t take up tennis seriously until she was 12. “My brother played and we lived in a country club,” she said.
Percival says she was about 14 or 15 when she realized she had enough talent to possibly get a scholarship playing tennis.
“I had a really good year and I started to love the sport more and more as I got older,” she said. “I realized that I wanted to play at a college and particularly a Division I school.”
Percival had some offers from southern schools including Wofford, but she was interested in going to a major university.
“I talked to Marshall and also all of my relatives lived in Pittsburgh,” she said of making the unusual trek north to play college tennis. “It wasn’t like I was leaving home necessarily because my grandparents live just an hour away.
“When I came here I loved the girls on the team and I think that’s what made me decide to come here,” she said.
Percival says she didn’t know what to expect when she arrived in Morgantown last fall.
“I just came in to play my best,” she said. “I knew there were going to be girls that were better than me and I just wanted to play as well as I could. We have 11 girls and every girl can play.”
Because of attrition, West Virginia coach Dan Silverstein had several spots to fill on his roster last year when he was recruiting Percival. He liked her ability to make shots and thought she would eventually make a very solid No. 2 or No. 3 player in his lineup.
“Her athleticism is unmatched on our team,” he said. “She can put a ball anywhere on the court and I think with a little more experience and confidence she is really going to shine in a couple of years.”
Percival isn’t the only freshman making key contributions this year for the Mountaineers, now 11-6 after beating Rutgers last Sunday. West Virginia’s 11 wins have already exceeded last year’s win total and are one shy of the 12 victories posted by Silverstein’s best team in 2003. The most victories in a single spring season were 15 back in 1975 when West Virginia was playing mostly West Virginia Conference schools.
This year Prinz has been splitting time with sophomore Kelly Walsh at No. 1 singles and has managed a 7-10 record playing against the opposing team’s best players. Monica Lyskawa has a winning 7-6 singles record playing No. 3 singles and Vienna’s Kathryn Gerber has won seven of 11 matches before being sidelined with an injury. She is expected back in the lineup soon.
Most of the team is made up of freshmen and the oldest player, Raynie Theis, is just a junior. Percival believes that bodes well for future.
“At first we thought that it would be a rebuilding year but we’ve been doing so well,” she said. “I think in years to come we’ll be even better than we are right now but we’ve been doing well so far.”
Percival admitted that none of the freshmen had the slightest idea about Big East tennis before they came to WVU and had to learn on the fly.
“When we would play before a match we would be like, ‘Should we beat this team?’ The older girls would be like ‘Well, they’re tough’ and then we would come out with a victory. We didn’t know where we stood in the Big East.”
West Virginia is 3-2 in league play so far, beating Connecticut, Seton Hall and Rutgers and losing to St. John’s and Syracuse. If the Mountaineers can win their last three matches against Georgetown, Pitt and Villanova they will qualify for the four-team Big East tournament for the first time since 2001. Making the conference tournament has been the team’s overriding goal from day one.
“We still have three more Big East matches so I try not to think about the tournament too much and I try not to look ahead,” Percival said. “If we keep playing well I think we’ll have a successful rest of the year.”
Even though West Virginia is enjoying a successful campaign the year hasn’t been without its difficulties. A match against St. John’s is currently being protested because Silverstein felt the Red Storm had taken liberties with their lineup, moving better players down to get points they wound up not needing anyway.
“Some of the older girls knew from playing them last year where their lineup should have been,” Percival said. “We had no clue but then after playing them we realized that this girl at three might be better than the girl playing at one.”
Despite that Percival said the score was much closer than a 7-0 loss would indicate.
“Every match was close and we could have won every single singles point we played and we should have won the doubles point. Hopefully we’ll get to play them again in the Big East tournament,” she said.
That was only singles match Percival has lost this year in conference play. In addition to her ability to make shots, she is also happy with the way she’s serving. That is an aspect of her game she has really developed since coming to WVU.
“My serve is one of the strongest points of my game right now and it just came when I got here,” she said. “It really improved and we serve a lot and that has helped. I like the placement with my serve.”
“She can really control the point with her powerful ground strokes and she’s a competitor,” added Silverstein.
Perhaps the biggest thing for Percival and her teammates right now is to be able to play a match outside in Morgantown. Hopefully they will get that opportunity Saturday morning when they are scheduled to play host to Georgetown at 11 am.
“I have no clue what it is like,” she said. “They said they’ve played one match outside last year. I would imagine it would be 10 times better instead of being in a little indoor facility in Pittsburgh. For once it won’t be an all-day event for a home match.”
Percival’s freshman season has already been considered an unqualified success by her coach, but she knows there are plenty of things she can improve upon to become an even better player. She says she needs to get better with her footwork and overall speed covering the court.
“I also need to hit my backhand better with more spin,” she mentioned.
Percival will have more time this summer working on that with her tennis pro Ben Cook when she returns home. She has been working with him for six years now.
In the meantime, she’s focused on getting the Mountaineers back into post-season play. Judging from their performances to date they may be able to start making their travel plans soon.
“We’re just a much stronger team this year and with this confidence we’ve gained we’re just going to be a tough team to beat,” said Silverstein.
