March 16, 2012
Pullman, Wash. -
The No. 27 Arizona State Sun Devils will travel to Pullman, Wash. this Saturday to take on Pac-12 opponent Washington State at 11 a.m. PT.
This match will open up regular season conference play for ASU, and it will also mark the first match in almost two weeks for the Devils. Due to scheduling, this is the second occurrence of such a gap in play for Arizona State this season.
"As you get later in the season, the kids would rather play then practice to be honest with you. So I think we absolutely need a match, and I think the kids are ready to go and they're excited to get back playing," head coach Sheila McInerney said.
And a longer gap midway through the season presents multiple challenges to not only the coaching staff, but the players as well. During regular season play when it's mainly supposed to be match style practice, The Sun Devils had to take a change of pace to stay at a 100% performance level.
"We worked on a lot of individual stuff, particularly this week. When you have a couple weeks off it gets hard to play sets against the same kids over and over, so we focus on the individual skills. Hitting one on one and really getting a chance to work with the kids," McInerney said.
Washington State enters the match unranked and 10-3 on the season, and most recently took on the No. 26 ranked Wildcats of Arizona.
"Washington State is good, they had four three-setters against USC and lost in a tough one. They're a scrappy team, a couple of their losses have been really tough to ranked opponent," said McInerney. "They also had a long drawn out match against Sacramento State, a team that also gave us some competition."
Match play on Saturday will present unique challenges to ASU with the weather forecast expected to be 46 degrees with a slushy mix -- quite the opposite of the usual 72 and sunny ASU has become accustomed to at the Whiteman Tennis Center in Tempe, Ariz. The weather forecast will force the two teams to compete indoors on a four court set up.
"It's a little bit of a disadvantage since we do not normally play indoors, so we just have to be ready," said McInerney. "You just have to embrace the fact no question about it. The kids have not played indoors in a while, so it's certainly a challenge."
Be sure to stick with thesundevils.com and ASU Women's Tennis on Facebook for all the action this weekend.