MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Penny Hsieh says West Virginia's team culture is one of the big reasons why she picked the Mountaineers to continue her collegiate career.
 
The Changhua, Taiwan, resident began playing collegiately at Troy where she won the first 10 matches of her sophomore season before transferring to Northern Colorado prior to the spring of 2020.
 
But the program disbanded once COVID-19 began ravaging the country. Therefore, she needed to find another school for her final two seasons of eligibility.
 
"The reason I chose WVU is when I started talking to the coaches they told me about how they want to build a culture and I always wanted to be on a team that's together," she says. "This is my first semester, but I can see how we can develop our program really good in the future."
 
Hsieh began playing tennis as a third grader while growing up in Taiwan, and eventually she became good enough to compete in the Hong Kong ITF Juniors Tournament in 2016.
 
Her highest ITF Junior World Ranking was 648 in the winter of 2015.
 
"I really like to compete on the court," she says. "I enjoy the time being on the court hitting around with my friends. It's just a feeling of feeling good when I win the point."
 
Hsieh says the team is beginning to jell as it prepares for its spring season getting underway on Friday, Jan. 21 at Penn State.
 
"Our first fall we didn't start super slow but we're slowly getting there," she says. "Our girls are pretty new for WVU. We have two transfers and two upperclassmen, so we are slowly bringing it together and we're kind of slowly getting to know each other. We've done pretty well on how we are communicating and we're slowly getting there.
 
"I hope next semester we continue to get better and see if we can get to nationals," she concludes.
 
This week's Life as a Mountaineer was produced by Megan Crain and is presented by WVU Medicine.