Women’s Tennis Opens Spring Season at Cal State Fullerton Titan Invitational on Friday

Broncos head coach Ben Cabell
Broncos head coach Ben Cabell
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Santa Clara women's tennis opens its 2019 spring season on Friday at the Cal State Fullerton Titan Invitational.  The hidden dual format invitational will run from Friday to Sunday, beginning with doubles play at 9 a.m. followed by a round of singles.  
 
Participating schools include: Arizona, Denver, Fresno State, Pacific, Santa Clara and host, Cal State Fullerton.  
 
"We are excited for the spring season opener.  This is what we work for all year," said Broncos head coach Ben Cabell.  "The players recently returned from their winter break, so there hasn't been a lot of time to get ready but they have done a good job this week preparing.  We are going to use this tournament to see where we are at and evaluate who is going to play, the lineups, the doubles teams to kick off the dual match season the following weekend."
 
The Broncos field a nine-member squad with seven returnees, led by senior Madison Clarke who was named Preseason All-WCC.  A trio of juniors - Caitlyn Frankel, Delaney Nothaft and Maddie Pothoff – comprise the rest of the upperclassmen.  
 
Pothoff entered the season 110th in the ITA preseason rankings and finished with a 3-3 record in the fall.  Frankel posted a team-best 7-5 doubles record, advancing to the round of 16 at the ITA Northwest Regional Championships while teaming up with Jamie Schroer.  Nothoff did not play in the fall.  
 
Nadine Del Carmen, Elvena Gevargiz and Katya Tabachnik make up the sophomore class.  
 
During the fall, Del Carmen played in 11 singles matches and worked exclusively with freshman Lindsey Pesqueira in doubles, going 2-4.  Gevargiz had seven singles and six doubles wins, both the second highest totals on the team.   Tabachnik teamed with Gevargiz in all the fall doubles matches advancing to the round of 16 at the ITA Northwest Regional Championships. 
 
"We have a lot of returners with only two freshmen so we are more experienced than last season. We've seen a lot of improvement with our players.  Both our freshmen had good falls and have done what we've asked them," said Cabell in reference to Pesqueira and Schroer.  
 
Schroer finished the fall with the best singles record on the team going 8-5.  Pesqueira gained valuable experience playing in 12 matches, going 4-8.    
 
"We had some injuries in the fall so the top couple of players didn't get to play as many matches as we had hoped but the ones that did play, we were quite happy with their performance and improvement.  Elvena and Jamie did especially well.   Jamie, who is a freshman, showed that she is going to be jumping somewhere in the lineup and help right away," said Cabell. 
 
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