Women’s Tennis opens Spring 2025 season
PHOTO COURTESY UTRGV ATHLETICS
As the ball gets rolling in the Spring 2025 semester, the UTRGV Women’s Tennis Team is entering their first spring season in the Southland Conference, among other changes to the program this year.
The team’s spring season began Saturday in Edinburg against the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Javelinas. As of press time, the results of the match were unavailable.
UTRGV Women’s Tennis head coach West Nott said he is “super excited” to begin spring play, a season that has brought a lot of change for the program.
“The energy is high right now,” Nott said. “They all want to prove themselves. I think most of the team has a chip on their shoulder and [I’m] really looking forward to seeing what they can do for the upcoming spring season.”
PHOTO COURTESY UTRGV ATHLETICS
This season, the team only had three returning players, leaving five players as newcomers. Most have previous experience in collegiate tennis, with only two of the incoming players being freshmen.
Sophomore Hitakamya Narwal, who transferred from the University of South Dakota, said that although she did not “feel that comfortable with teammates” at her previous school, she “felt welcomed in the [Rio Grande] Valley.”
Narwhal said her first impressions of the team entering spring play were positive and the team was “strong” following the break.
“Everyone was practicing, even at their homes,” she said. “We have a really strong team this year and we’re all ready, good to go [and] excited to play.”
PHOTO COURTESY UTRGV ATHLETICS
Nott said that everyone, from newcomers to the returners, are going to “have a hand” in the team’s success in the upcoming season.
“We are gonna rely heavily on these new players,” he said. “They’re experienced, they know how to win and some of these players I had recruited before, we just didn’t get them the first time around. They were unhappy in their former environments and they’ve found a new home and they feel like they’ve made the right decision.”
This season marks the first in which the Vaqueros, across most of its programs, compete in the Southland Conference after leaving the Western Athletic Conference.
After playing in the Southland Fall Championship, Nott is looking forward to getting the team to April’s conference tournament in Thibodeaux, Louisiana.
“New opponents, new coaches [and] new venues–those are gonna be the adjustments we’re gonna have to make,” he said. “Everything else is pretty much the same. We’re just trying to win every match.”
Following their season opener this past Saturday, the Vaqueros will take on the St. Mary’s University Rattlers at 2 p.m. Thursday in San Antonio. Then, they will return home to take on Prairie View A&M University at 10 a.m. Sunday.
