Match Notes (PDF)

PORTLAND, Ore. — No longer a surprise team, the Portland State women's tennis team can now solidify itself as a conference title contender with a third straight trip to the Big Sky tournament in 2016.
 
After two straight tournament berths in 2014 and 2015, the Vikings have come a long way from the 2014 team that got picked to finish eighth in the Big Sky and instead finished fourth to earn the program's first-ever berth into the conference tournament. The Vikings set a program record with a 6-3 Big Sky record that season, and followed it up with their second straight berth into the tournament last season.
 
The Vikings will not have those same perceptions problems this season thanks to that 2014 team, but head coach Jay Sterling was quick to warn against the team getting too comfortable with the idea of perennially making the conference tournament.
 
"At this point in the season, we don't expect to get anywhere because I think we know that we have a hard road ahead and so our expectation is to just try and win and compete in each match," Sterling said.
 
Sterling said the Vikings' long-term goal will always be to make the conference tournament, and to compete for the title once there, but he also stressed that the team will get there by focusing on the day-to-day.
 
"The goals for this season are, obviously, we want to try and win a conference championship. That's been the goal for the team for the past few years, but that's just kind of the long-term goal," Sterling said. "Obviously, we break that down into weekly goals and match goals and just trying to look one match at a time. The depth of this conference is getting better every year, more competitive every year, and so there are no easy teams in the Big Sky Conference any more. Our long-term vision is there, but our short-term vision is week-to-week, match-to-match."
 
Sterling believes that focus will help the Vikings overcome an odd problem that arose last year in which the Vikings had several players post standout individual seasons, but sometimes couldn't get them to all win in the same match. Tracy Dong, Sabina-Elena Preda, Siena Peri and departed senior Megan Govi all had winning records in Big Sky play, and yet the Vikings finished 5-6 in the conference. Dong, Preda and Peri posted 21 singles wins between the three of them in conference play, and yet there were only three conferences matches in which all three of them won their matches.
 
Sterling believes that that aspect of the team's 2015 season was an anomaly, however, and that the team's focus on the day-to-day will solve that.
 
"There's not a lot of control over that. It's just the way things played out last year. Obviously we want to be consistent, but that's really focusing on outcome and we just focus on the process," Sterling said about the team's up-and-down results last year. "What I want us to do consistently is compete and execute and play the best we have to offer that day. Do that consistently. Reduce our unforced errors and just play smart. And if we do those things consistently, then the outcome is what it is.
 
"That's the tough thing about an individual sport. You can play the best match of your life, the best tennis of your life, but your opponent can also have that same day and you can lose. So we just try to focus on the process than the outcome."
 
The Vikings should have the players to enact that process, as five of the Vikings' six regular starters return from last season, including the trio of Dong, Peri and Preda, who all had standout seasons in 2015.
 
Dong had the best season of any of the Vikings, as she set single-season program records for overall singles win percentage (.789), Big Sky singles wins (8), wins at No. 3 singles (13) and win percentage at No. 3 singles (.765). Dong also sandwiched win streaks of nine and five matches around a loss to Sacramento State's Anna-Maria Nau, giving her 14 wins in 15 matches at one point in the season.
 
Peri also had one of the best freshman seasons of anybody in program history, as she went 8-9 at line two, with her eight wins ranking second all-time in a single season at the No. 2 spot. Peri also had a five-match win streak of her own during the season, including a win streak of five straight matches in Big Sky play.
 
Preda, meanwhile, had a strong start and finish to Big Sky play, as she won her first three Big Sky matches against traditional conference powers Montana State, Montana and Sacramento State, and then finished the season with wins in four of the team's last five Big Sky matches. Preda also tied the second-best single-season total for wins at line four with nine in 2015, and had the third-best single-season win percentage at line four (.600).
 
Redshirt senior Dané Vorster will join those three at the top spot in the Vikings lineup, where she's won 14 matches for the Vikings over the past two years. Vorster was an All-Big Sky first-team selection in 2014 after going 5-3 in Big Sky play at line one that season. Vorster had a tougher 2015 season, going 6-11 at line one, but has captained the Vikings to the Big Sky tournament in each of the past two seasons.
 
Additionally, redshirt junior Kelsey Frey returns to the lineup for the Vikings, and should be much healthier than she was in 2015, when she was still recovering from an injury that kept her out completely in 2014. Frey posted a breakthrough win at the Gonzaga Invitational in the fall, as she overcome a 6-0 loss in the first set to Idaho's Celine Koets, but turned it around to beat Koets 6-1 in the second set and win the third set in a tiebreaker. Frey trailed Koets 5-2 in the final set, and saved a match point at 5-4, eventually taking Koets to a tiebreaker, which she won 7-2.
 
Sophomore Alana Chaplin also returns for the Vikings, while the Vikings added two freshmen in Taylor Rees and Ashley Knecht.
 
Sterling had high praise for Rees, who won the Oregon State 6A doubles title with her sister, Emily Rees, in 2015.
 
"Taylor Rees has come in and played really well," Sterling said. "We're going to find where she plays in the lineup. We have our ideas, but we have several matches to kind of sort things out. That's what we'll do with our first few matches is play and see how people do and let the lineup sort itself out."
 
The schedule sets up for the Vikings to get a head start on the conference, as six of the team's first eight Big Sky matches will be played at home.
 
The Vikings will get started on the road this weekend, however, as they head to California for road matches against UC Davis, Sacramento State and the Academy of Art. The Vikings begin at UC Davis Friday at 1:30 p.m., and then follow it up with their Big Sky opener at Sacramento State Saturday at 1 p.m. The team then concludes the three-day trip with a match against the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday at 12 p.m.
 
The Vikings will then open their home schedule next weekend, as they host South Dakota State Feb. 5 at 9 a.m. (PT), and then play a Big Sky match against Southern Utah Feb. 6 at 12 p.m. (PT). Both matches will be played at Club Green Meadows in Vancouver, Wash.
 
NOTES FOR THIS WEEKEND
 
SCOUTING UC DAVIS:
The Vikings and UC Davis will face off at the Marya Welch Tennis Center in Davis, Calif., at 1:30 p.m. (PT) Friday
• The Aggies started their 2016 spring dual season last Saturday, beating the University of the Pacific 4-3. Pacific swept all three doubles matches against the Aggies, but the Aggies won four of the six singles matches over Pacific
• Three of the Aggies' four singles wins against Pacific came in three sets
• The Aggies beat the Vikings 6-1 on the Vikings' home court last season, though Portland State No. 1 Dané Vorster did not play in that match
• The Aggies return five of the six singles players who played for them in last season's match in Tiffany Pham, Lani-Rae Green, Frederique Sleiffer, Jessie Lee and Kamila Kecki
• Portland State's Tracy Dong was the only Viking to win their match last season, as she beat Pham 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 at line two
• The Aggies finished 11-12 overall and 3-5 in the Big West in 2015, and made the Big West tournament but lost 4-0 to UC Santa Barbara in the quarterfinals
 
ALL-TIME SERIES VERSUS UC DAVIS:
The Aggies lead the Vikings 5-1 in the all-time series between the two teams, and have won the last five matches in the series. The teams' match in 2015 was their first since 2011.
 
SCOUTING SACRAMENTO STATE:
The Vikings play Sacramento State Saturday at 1 p.m. in Sacramento, Calif., which will open Big Sky play for both teams
• The Hornets opened their 2016 spring dual season with a 5-2 road win at San Francisco. San Francisco won the doubles point off the Hornets in that match, but the Hornets won five of the six singles matches
• The Hornets beat the Vikings in the same way last season, when the Vikings took the doubles point but lost the match 5-2 after losing five of the six singles matches
• The Hornets return two of the Hornets' three All-Big Sky first-team selections from last season in Deimante Bulotovaite and Alina Soltanici. Those two went a combined 20-1 in Big Sky play last season, including a perfect 11-0 mark for Bulotovaite
• The Hornets went a perfect 11-0 in Big Sky play as a team last season, but lost the Big Sky tournament final to Idaho, 4-3
• The Hornets' loss in the Big Sky tournament final snapped a streak of 13 straight Big Sky tournament titles
• The Hornets have a 123-3 record in Big Sky regular-season matches since 2001
• The Hornets return four of the six players that played in their 5-2 win over the Vikings last season, including Alina Soltanici and Deimante Bulotovaite, who beat the Vikings' Dané Vorster and Siena Peri at lines one and two, respectively
• Anna-Maria Nau also returns after beating the Vikings' Tracy Dong 7-5, 6-0 at line three, as well as Ana Loaiza Esquivias, who beat the Vikings' Kelsey Frey 6-1, 6-2 at line five
 
ALL-TIME SERIES VERSUS SACRAMENTO STATE:
The Vikings have never beaten the Hornets, as they're 0-15 all-time against them. Last year was the first time the Vikings had ever taken two points off the Hornets in a match, and the Vikings have lost 11 of their 15 matches against the Hornets without claiming a point.
 
SCOUTING ACADEMY OF ART:
The Vikings conclude their road trip at the Academy of Art, an NCAA Division II team, Sunday at 12 p.m. at the San Francisco Tennis Club in San Francisco, Calif.
• The Academy of Art Urban Knights will open their 2016 spring dual season against the Vikings Sunday ranked No. 23 in NCAA Division II, as well as sixth in the NCAA Division II West Region
• The Urban Knights went 13-6 last season, and finished the year ranked 11th within NCAA Division II
• The team made it to the PacWest Conference tournament title game last year before losing 5-1 to third-ranked BYU Hawaii
• The tournament final berth was the team's best-ever finish in the PacWest Conference, which featured seven top 25 teams in the tournament last season
• The Urban Knights earned a berth into the NCAA Division II West Regionals last season, but lost 5-2 to 11th-ranked Hawaii Pacific
• The Urban Knights return only four of their nine letterwinners from last season's team, and lost their top two singles players in Nina Gajdosikova and Lucia Zavarcikova, All-PacWest first- and second-team selections, respectively
• Michelle Dandik Zaale returns for her senior season after earning All-PacWest second-team honors last season, when she went 12-6 overall, including an 8-4 record at line three
• The Urban Knights' Annika Schneider opened the season ranked 47th nationally in NCAA Division II singles, as well as eighth in the NCAA Division II West Region
• Taislia Andrieva, Paula Alcantara and Michelle Dandik Zaale also opened the season ranked 16th, 17th and 19th, respectively, in the NCAA Division II West Region
 
ALL-TIME SERIES VERSUS ACADEMY OF ART:
This will be the first-ever meeting between the Academy of Art and Portland State in women's tennis.
 
HISTORY MAKERS:
The Vikings have several players on the verge of making history, none closer than sophomore Siena Peri, who will tie the career record for wins at No. 2 singles with one more victory. Junior Tracy Dong already has the career lead in wins at No. 3 singles after winning 13 matches at the spot last season, but can extend her record with more wins this season. Dong also holds the career record for win percentage at No. 3 singles, while fellow junior Sabina-Elena Preda ranks second currently in win percentage at No. 4 singles (.600). Preda also ranks fourth all-time in career wins at No. 4 singles, and will move into a tie with Anya Dalkin for second all-time with three more singles wins. Redshirt Senior Dané Vorster, meanwhile, ranks second all-time in wins at No. 1 singles, but will need a monster year to catch the current leader Leinani McAneneney, as McAneney leads Vorster 27 wins to 14 currently. Redshirt junior Kelsey Frey could also take over the career doubles wins record this season with a monster year, as she currently ranks fourth with 21 wins, 12 behind current leader and former teammate, Megan Govi, who had 33 doubles wins in her PSU career. Frey is closer to the record in overall doubles win percentage, as her career mark of .600 (21-14) is just behind Lacey Pfilbsen, who had a .609 winning percentage (14-9). Frey also ranks just one win off the career lead for wins at No. 3 doubles, while Vorster ranks just four wins off the career lead in wins at No. 1 doubles.
 
2014-15 SEASON:
The 2014-15 season was filled with individual success for the Vikings, as Tracy Dong put together one of the best seasons by a Viking in school history. Dong finished with single-season school records for overall singles win percentage (.789), Big Sky singles wins (8), wins at No. 3 singles (13) and win percentage at No. 3 singles (.765), and already holds the Portland State career lead for wins at No. 3 singles (13) and win percentage at No. 3 singles (.765) as well. Dong, an All-Big Sky second-team selection, also had win streaks of nine and five straight matches during the season, and won 14 of her last 15 matches at one point during the season. Dong wasn't alone, though, as Siena Peri also had one of the best freshman seasons of anybody in program history, as she went 8-9 at line two, with her eight wins ranking second all-time in a single season at the No. 2 spot. Peri also had a five-match win streak of her own during the season, including a win streak of five straight matches in Big Sky play. Sabina-Elena Preda, meanwhile, had strong starts and finishes to Big Sky play, as she won her first three Big Sky matches against traditional conference powers Montana State, Montana and Sacramento State, and then finished the season with wins in four of the team's last five Big Sky matches. As a team, the Vikings finished 9-11 overall and 5-6 in Big Sky play, finishing sixth in the conference and qualifying for their second straight Big Sky tournament.