MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The No. 75-ranked West Virginia University women’s tennis team travels to College Park, Maryland, for a nonconference match against the Terrapins on Saturday, March 5. The match is set to begin at noon.

 

“Right now, the focus is on us getting better,” third-year coach Miha Lisac said. “We have to clean up our game. There are still a lot of things that we have to work on in order to improve. As far as Maryland goes, we are familiar with their players. We saw them in the fall at our tournament, and we saw them at William & Mary’s tournament. They are a feisty team. They are fairly talented just like Cornell. They battle, and they fight.”

 

West Virginia (6-3) and Maryland (3-6) will meet for the 15th time in program history, as the Terrapins hold a 14-0 edge over the Mountaineers. The last time West Virginia played a dual match against Maryland was during the 2009 season under former coach March Walters, and the Mountaineers fell to the Terrapins 7-0.

 

Most recently, the Mountaineers saw action against the Terrapins in singles and doubles play at the 2015 William & Mary Tribe Invitational (Sept. 18-20) and the WVU Pink Invitational (Sept. 25-27).

 

In its last weekend of competition, West Virginia edged Cornell in a 4-3 battle on Feb. 27, in Ithaca, New York, inside the Reis Tennis Center, to tie the all-time series record at two apiece. West Virginia defeated Cornell for the first time since 1995, as the Mountaineers captured the doubles point and three singles victories over the Big Red to claim the match.

 

Sophomore Habiba Shaker leads the team in singles play with an overall record of 8-1. Sophomore Carolina Lewis and freshman Paula Goetz have five wins each, followed by senior Hailey Barrett and sophomore Lyn Yuen Choo with four victories apiece. The doubles tandem of Barrett and Shaker holds a team-best 8-1 mark at the No. 1 slot this season.

 

In its last weekend of competition, Maryland swept Rutgers by a score of 7-0 on Feb. 29, at the East Brunswick Racquet Club, to win its Big Ten Conference opener. The Terrapins returned eight players from last season’s squad and added two freshmen in Arnelle Sullivan and Caroline Williams. Maryland’s Ekaterina Tour is the Terps’ top singles player. Tour is ranked No. 14 in the Atlantic Region, followed by the doubles tandem of Tour and Kristina Hovsepyan at No. 7.

 

“I am looking forward to this stage of the season,” Lisac noted. “We are starting to get into the nitty gritty part of the season. The matches that we are playing now are going to prepare us for Big 12 play. Teams like Maryland will come in ready to play. We have to make sure we are prepared to handle situations just like this. It’s going to be a great match, and I expect nothing less than a battle.”

 

If a live scores link becomes available, it will be posted at WVUsports.com.