Three Teams, Three Cities, Three Days

PROVO -- After splitting matches last week against San Diego State and UNLV, the BYU women’s tennis team will travel to three cities in as many days to play three conference opponents. The Cougars face Air Force Thursday, Colorado State Friday and Wyoming Saturday.

“We had two good matches against San Diego State and UNLV,” BYU coach Joey Johnson said. “We’re working on moving forward and continuing to have solid play.”

Last season, BYU swept all three teams in Provo. The Cougars are currently 1-2 in Mountain West Conference play after overcoming SDSU 5-2 and losing to UNLV 4-3. AFA, CSU and UW all have 1-1 records against MWC opponents after beating New Mexico and falling to TCU over the weekend.

The Falcons are first on the agenda for BYU and have been enjoying a successful year thus far. Air Force (14-6, 1-1) is well on its way to the first winning season since the 2002-2003 campaign, when it finished play at 15-13. AFA blanked New Mexico last week, its first defeat of the Lobos and its first sweep of a conference challenger in school history.

Friday the Cougars will make the short trip to Fort Collins, Colo. to play Colorado State. The Rams are 6-8 overall and lost 7-0 to TCU in their most recent outing. During the fall season, players from BYU and CSU faced each other at both the BYU Invitational and the ITA Mountain Region Championship.

In the last match of the weekend, the Cougars will take on Wyoming. The Cowgirls (9-5, 1-1) barely fell to TCU, 4-3. UW also rewrote the history books last week by defeating New Mexico for the first time ever.

“This is a slightly longer road trip than we’ve had with more travel, but we’ve made our schedule as efficient as possible,” Johnson said. “We’ve got our routine down, and the energy level of the players should be high.”

BYU will begin the week at the Air Force Academy’s tennis courts at 2 p.m. Thursday. Friday’s match against Colorado State starts at 1 p.m. at Miramont Lifestyle Fitness South. The Cougars wrap up the weekend at the UW Tennis Courts Saturday at 10 a.m.