Women's Tennis Welcomes No. 8 Virginia For NCAA Championships
Bears play Cavaliers in Round of 16 Friday at 7 p.m. in Waco.
WACO, Texas - The ninth-ranked and eighth-seeded Baylor women's tennis team will face eighth-ranked and ninth-seeded Virginia in the NCAA Championship Round of 16 Friday at 7 p.m. at the Hurd Tennis Center.
Tickets for the NCAA Championships are available at BaylorBears.com or on the day of the match at the Baylor Baseball ticket office. Single-session tickets are $10 (adult) and $5 (children), while all-session passes can be purchased for $75 (adult) or $50 (children).
THE RUNDOWN
· Baylor, the No. 8 overall seed, is making its 10th NCAA?Round of 16 appearance in the last 11 years and the 11th overall in program history.
· Baylor, 27-6 overall, has won eight-straight matches, after beating Northwestern State (4-0) and No. 28 Rice (4-2) in NCAA?opening round action.
· BU?has a 5-5 record in Sweet 16 matches and last advanced out of the round in 2011 when the Lady Bears reached the NCAA?semifinals.
· Baylor earned an automatic berth to the NCAA?Championships by winning its eighth Big 12 Championship title. The Lady Bears were also the Big 12 regular season champion for the 11th time in 2015.
· Baylor is currently ranked No. 9 in the country with three ranked doubles tandems, Ema Burgic and Blair Shankle at No. 14, Leolia JeanJean and Kelly Anderson at No. 42 and Burgic and Rachel James-Baker at No. 62, and five ranked singles players: No. 22 Burgic, No. 41 Shankle, No. 80 Kiah Generette, No. 93 JeanJean and No. 113 James-Baker.
· Baylor has compiled an 18-6 mark against ranked foes, while going a perfect 9-0 versus unranked teams. All of BU's losses came against top-30 opponents.
· The Bears have been searching for consistency in the doubles point, dropping the opening point in 10 of its 33 matches as a total of 20 doubles tandems have teamed together for BU.
· Head coach Joey Scrivano in his 13th season at BU and was named the Big 12 Coach of the Year for the sixth time, while Burgic was tabbed as the conference's player of the year for a second time.
· Looking ahead, if Baylor gets past Virginia, the Lady Bears will face the winner of USC?and Texas on Sunday at 4 p.m.
Scouting the Opposition
Baylor leads the all-time series vs. Virginia, 4-2. The Bears and Cavaliers last met on Jan. 24, 2015 with BU?taking a 6-1 victory in Waco. The Lady Bears jumped out to an early advantage in the match as the Cavaliers were only able to field a team of four players due to illness. That meant BU won matches at No. 5 and 6 singles and No. 3 doubles by default. The Bears won the doubles point and got victories from Blair Shankle, Ema Burgic and Kiah Generette.
This will be the second-straight year that the two teams meet in the NCAA?Championship Round of 16. Last season, Virginia carded a 4-1 triumph over BU. The lone point on the day for Baylor came from Blair Shankle.
Baylor and Virginia first met in 2008 with the Lady Bears earning a 6-1 victory in Waco. The two teams split a pair of contests in 2011 and 2012 with Virginia taking a 4-3 victory first and then Baylor posting a 4-2 triumph a year later. Both of those matches came as part of the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in Charlottesville, Va.
Quote from the Coach
“It's going to come down to who handles adversity better, who has a clear plan of how to play and who sticks with it. We've done a good job with that all year, and so have they. That's why it's a great Sweet 16 match. It's 8 vs. 9. It doesn't get better than that. I want our athletes to be ready to have no regrets. Go out there and put it on the line, and whatever happens, happens.” – head coach Joey Scrivano on the match
Live scoring, video and a blog will be available for each and every match of the NCAA Championships on BaylorBears.com.
To stay current on all things Baylor Women's Tennis, follow the team on Twitter and Instagram: @BaylorWTennis.
