The Lewis-Clark State College men’s and women’s tennis teams have made attending the NAIA National Tournament each May a regular stop each season. The Warrior women have qualified for nationals 14 straight years and 17 overall, while the men’s team has made 11 straight trips and 20 overall.

This season, the NAIA has changed its national qualifying plan and in the process, made it much tougher for the Warriors.

In the past, the NAIA has grouped LCSC, College of Idaho and Southern Oregon together because they are the only three NAIA in the Pacific Northwest with tennis programs. Either the winner of head-to-head matches or the highest ranked team in the final NAIA poll qualified for nationals. Because LCSC always dominated the region and ranked in the NAIA Top 25 in both men’s and women’s play, the Warriors annually qualified.

However, after last season, Southern Oregon decided to discontinue tennis, which caused the NAIA to force College of Idaho and LCSC to join up with two teams from the Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference, three teams from the Red River Athletic Conference, and four teams from the Sooner Athletic Conference for national qualification purposes. Those 11 teams will now compete for one automatic bid to the national tournament through a two-day bracket tournament on April 19-20 in Oklahoma City.

The national tournament features 24 teams, of which 14 are automatic qualifiers and another berth goes to a host team. That leaves only nine at-large berths, which are awarded to the top nine teams in the final NAIA poll that did not earn an automatic berth. In the past, that meant almost all at-large berths went schools from California and the South, which dominate the NAIA polls.

In the new grouping for the LCSC men, who were ranked 18th a year ago in the final NAIA poll, they must compete with seventh-ranked Oklahoma Christian and 18th ranked Oklahoma Baptist for the automatic berth, while the LCSC women, who were ranked No. 18 at the end of last season, have No. 8 Oklahoma Christian, No. 13 Southern Nazarene and No. 15 Oklahoma Baptist.

It also means it will be questionable if either Warrior team can qualify for the national tournament if they don’t finish first or second in the tournament at Oklahoma City. Although LCSC regularly advances to the second round of nationals, it never has that impressive of a season record because it plays so many NCAA schools and also against a number of the top-ranked NAIA teams from California.

This season, the Warrior women play six NCAA Division I teams, while the men’s squad has five. Both open their seasons against such schools as the women begin on Jan. 21 at Washington State University, while the men’s team opens Jan. 22 against the University of Idaho in Spokane.

Here’s a breakdown of the two Warrior squads

WOMEN

This is a relatively young and inexperienced squad as far as college matches go. The Warriors have 14 players on the roster, but 10 are either sophomores or freshmen. Six players are also new to the program and two of the newcomers will redshirt this season.

“We have a young group of players who are eager to learn,” Warrior coach Kai Fong said. “It will take a little while to get everyone settled into their roles.”

It will also take Fong a little time to see what exactly he has. Of the six newcomers, three enrolled at LCSC for the start of the spring semester, meaning they will have only been with the team for two weeks when the Warriors open the season with four straight matches against NCAA D-I teams in WSU, Idaho, Seattle University, and Eastern Washington.

The Warriors do have some experience back with five players who saw quite a bit of varsity action a year ago. Ciara Schultz, from Yakima, Wash., and Chelsea Gay of The Dalles, Ore., are the lone seniors on the team, while Barb Sneckner, from Bend, Ore., is the lone junior with much experience. Sophomores Dorothy Chong of Malaysia and Sammie Teigen of University Place, Wash., round out the players with varsity experience.

Chong played No. 2 singles at the national tournament last season, while Schultz was at No. 3. Sneckner and Teigen were at Nos. 5 and 6, respectively. Gay was strictly a doubles player at nationals.

“It’s pretty exciting because we have a lot of players who have improved over the last year,” Fong said. “Our younger players have started to see that they can compete. We our using our first four D-I school matches as practice. Good practice. But we are not so fearful of the stronger competition. We realize our focus is not that we are playing WSU, but playing tennis at our level and being consistent. If we can do that, it will help us compete at the NAIA level.”

Among the newcomers who could make an immediate impact are Dominika Jasova of Slovakia and Florencia Martina of Indonesia.

Fong says with the larger roster, he will likely try a number of lineup combinations to give the players experience.

“Our team has not enjoyed decent records in the last few years and this year will not be any different given the competition level we face,” Fong says. Our goal is to improve, be as competitive as we can, and to gel as a team. Gelling as a team is one of the biggest challenges in tennis as we are working to transition players who are accustomed to an individual sport into functioning collectively as a team.

“A win by the sixth-ranked position player has the same value as a win by the best player on the team at the No. 1 position. Everyone has to learn a new role.”

A highlight for the women’s team this season is again playing the University of Portland. The two programs have not met since 1995.

MEN

The men’s roster has 10 players and although the team has only one senior in Oliver Stone Sindayigaya, the team is relatively experienced.  Five players return who competed at the NAIA national tournament a year ago, including No. 1 singles player Ivan Krijanto, a sophomore from Indonesia.

The Warriors also return Robert Benjamin, a junior from New Caledonia, who played at No. 3 singles a year ago, while Sindayigaya was at No. 4, and Cesar Uauy, a junior from Chile, was at No. 5. Tyler Oram, a junior from Boise, played doubles at nationals last season.

Also returning are sophomores Jeff Lowdnes and Lincoln Gay, while three freshmen, all from Europe, round out the roster. They are Viktor Svoboda from the Czech Republic, Anders Tischer of Germany, and Nicolas Tweedie of Spain.

“We have a pretty experienced group coming back and we should be pretty strong,” Fong said. “The three players we recruited are going to make the lineup or at least be on the traveling team. They will make an impact and as a coach, you always like to see that. It helps with the depth of this team.”

As with the women, Fong expects to tinker with the lineup, which he knows does cost the players some varsity time on the courts, but he does this to foster and develop team unity with the players.

“We need to instill team values in each player,” Fong said. “The goals are to be consistent competitors in practice and in matches, to outwork the opponents and to develop a solid united group of players with varied/diverse backgrounds.”

Fong said another goal with the men’s team is consistency.

“What I have stressed to them is we need to be consistent performers,” Fong said. “We want to be playing at a certain level and doing it consistently. I don’t want peaks and valley. I don’t want to see us peak early. We just want to play well consistently and continue to improve.”

The men also face a challenging schedule this season, but the program has always been able to be fairly competitive against the NCAA schools. Last season, LCSC defeated Whitworth twice, Montana State-Billings three times, and Seattle University. It also competed well against Montana State-Bozeman and Weber State out of the Big Sky Conference.

“We have a very tough schedule, which is why we need to be consistent,” Fong said. “It’s going to be a challenge.”

Fong will be assisted by long-time volunteer coach Jeanne Poxleitner, as well as volunteer coaches/managers Tim Stone, Alyson Peck, and Megan Smedley.

2010 outlook

2009 outlook
2008 outlook