Coming Soon to a Top 25 Near You: Hawkeye Women's Tennis

The University of Iowa Women’s Tennis team started the 2010 fall season this weekend in Waterloo, IA, traveling up to the UNI Invite on Friday.

With a combined doubles and singles record of 13-1 on Friday, 8-4 on Saturday, and a completion of 2 singles titles on the final day, things are looking good again for the Hawkeye racket wielders. This is a good sign for a Hawkeye team coming off one of the best springs in recent memory.

In the spring of 2010, the women’s tennis squad finished with a 28th overall ranking, and second in the Central region, just behind the Arkansas Razorbacks. Iowa earned a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten Tournament and a trip to the NCAA Tournament under the leadership of head coach Katie Dougherty. (By the way, it was first year as Dougherty as a head coach. Not the first year as head coach of the Hawkeyes, but first year as a head coach- EVER.)

Leading the way for the Hawkeye Women’s Tennis team is junior Sonja Molnar, who won the Platinum Flight bracket this weekend. She also competes as the number one singles player on the team, which is apparently like playing first chair in an orchestra. Molnar went 28-9 last year in singles competition, finishing with the 55th individual ranking nationally and 3rd individual ranking in the region. She leads the team, both as a tennis player and as an Academic all-Big Ten and letter winner.

The other bracket winner from the weekend was senior Jessica Young, who championed the Gold Flight bracket.

Let’s play “Did You Know?”.

Did you know…

…that The University of Iowa Women’s Tennis team has zero players from the state of Iowa? There are two players from Illinois (Lynne Poggensee-Wei and Christina Harazin), one player from Pennsylvania, Michigan and Kansas (Alexis Dorr Jessica Young and Ally Majercik, respectively) one player from Ontario (Sonja Molnar) and one player from Guatemala (Cassandra Escobar).

… of the seven players currently listed on the roster, only one is an under classman? (Freshman Christina Harazin) The rest are either juniors or seniors.
…Head Coach Katie Dougherty is a graduate of Wisconsin? After graduating, Dougherty spent time honing her coaching skills at Penn State and Wisconsin. It seems she knows her way around a few Big Ten campuses.

So stay tuned to this tennis team. The fall schedule is quick and brief, with most of the heavy lifting done in the spring. However, the fall schedule gives a nice preview of things to come.

So far, I like what I see.