STARKVILLE, Miss. — The LSU women’s tennis team faces the tournament host Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs on Thursday in the opening round of the Southeastern Conference tournament being held here at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre in Starkville, Miss.
“We’re just looking forward to getting back on the court and competing,” said LSU head coach Tony Minnis. “We’ve been having some pretty good practices lately, and I think that the team is rested and ready for Thursday. We have are hands full in Mississippi State, but we already beat them at home once this season, so I think that we will have some confidence going into the match.”
LSU heads into the conference tournament as the No. 7 seed and with an overall record of 14-8 on the season. The Lady Tigers ended the regular season with a 4-7 mark in SEC dual matches and LSU was outscored by conference opponents by a total score of 49-27.
The Lady Bulldogs, who have the luxury of playing at home in the SEC tournament, enter Thursday’s first-round match with an overall record of 7-11 and as the 37th-ranked team in the nation. Mississippi State earned the 10th seed in this weekend’s tournament by finishing the season with a 3-8 record against SEC opponents.
In the regular season duel between the two teams, LSU notched a 4-3 victory over the Lady Bulldogs on the road in Starkville, Miss. The match was only the Lady Tigers’ second SEC contest of the season and improved LSU’s conference record to 2-0. The Lady Tiger tennis team leads the all-time series with Mississippi State by a count of 17-5.
The SEC rivals have only met once in the conference tournament’s previous 11 years of existence. The match-up took place in 1995 and the Lady Tigers blanked Mississippi State by a score of 5-0.
Last season in the SEC tournament, LSU upset higher-seeded Arkansas, 5-2, in the opening round of competition, but then fell to the second-seeded Florida Gators in the second round, 5-1. Florida went on to win the 2000 tournament held in Oxford, Miss.
The Lady Tigers’ Bruna Colosio heads into Thursday’s opening round match as the eighth-ranked singles player in the nation. She owns a 23-3 overall record this season and is a perfect 10-0 on court No. 1 against SEC opponents. Colosio is scheduled to face Mississippi State’s lone-ranked singles player in No. 83 Amelie Detriviere. In the regular season contest between the two players, LSU’s Colosio recorded a 6-0, 5-7, 7-6(2), win over Detriviere to clinch the match over the Lady Bulldogs.
In doubles play, the Lady Tigers’ 22nd-ranked combination of freshman Rocio Fantilli and Colosio looks to earn its 17th victory of the season on Thursday. The tandem possesses an overall record of 16-4 in No. 1 doubles play and a 6-4 mark against SEC opponents.
The SEC released its 2001 Academic Honor Roll on Wednesday and three Lady Tigers earned the illustrious conference honors for their hard work in the classroom. Student athletes qualify for the award when they are at least a sophomore in classification and maintain a grade point average of 3.0 or better.
LSU’s Tami Botts received the honor for a third time for her work in sociology, while Kelly Craycraft earned the prestigious honor for a second-straight season in mass communication. Mandy Rice, the Lady Tigers’ senior from New Orleans, La., qualified for the SEC Academic Honor Roll for a third year in-a-row for her work in kinesiology.
The LSU women’s tennis team will face the Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs in the first round of the SEC tournament on Thursday at 11 a.m. in the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre in Starkville, Miss.