SDSU tennis teams poised to take the next step
Tennis is among the few outdoor programs at South Dakota State that didn't get a fall facility boost in the form of the opening of the Sanford Jackrabbit Athletic Complex. No matter. The players are building organically instead.
The SDSU men have moved into the regional top 10 in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings and the women over the weekend put a singles player into the Round of 32 at the United States Tennis Association/ITA Regional Championships. Both are firsts for the Jacks since moving to the NCAA Division I level in 2004. Prior to 2012, they'd never qualified for the Summit League meet.
Even without much by way of facilities, SDSU heads into the long winter on the brink of being unofficially reclassified from improving to legitimate.
"When you start talking to recruits and parents about doing stuff like this they're looking like, 'What is this kid doing? This guy is blowing smoke,' " fourth-year coach Michael Engdahl said with a laugh. "To do that when those kids are juniors and seniors is really cool. Hopefully we can keep improving. That's going to be the next challenge for the program, to not be content."
The accomplishments are so unfamiliar that some definitions are in order.
In Division I tennis, the country is split into nine regions. SDSU is part of the Central Region along with a few schools each from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Missouri Valley among others. There are 16 men's teams and 28 women's teams.
In other words, the SDSU men are in the middle of the pack by being ranked 10th. However, there are rewards for that distinction in the form of getting extra automatic bids into the main draw at the USTA/ITA Regional meet.
And how does that event work? It's a best-of-the-best tournament devoid of flights unlike traditional duals, the highlight of the fall season. Each team gets a minimum of one automatic entry into the main draw and can earn more based on rankings and results in a qualifying draw.
Over the weekend at Oklahoma State, the SDSU men put two doubles teams – Parker Lawley-Andrea Boglic and Gary Notkin-Mateus Moreira – into the Round of 32 in the main draw, while the women sent Iasmin Rosa that far in the singles bracket and Rosa-Ffion Davies the same distance in doubles. That's in addition to several victories in qualifiers and consolation play.
Rosa's advancement is considered to be the most significant. Engdahl called it, "The next step for the program." It was fitting that she be the one to get it done, too, in that last year she became the first SDSU woman to advance to the main draw through the qualifying bracket. Plus, she's an import – a Brazilian.
The Jacks have a combined 13 internationals compared to five Americans on their two rosters.
"It feels awesome," said Rosa, who went 18-8 last season. "It makes me want to work harder to prove that I can do it."
Working hard will get harder once the snow starts to fly. SDSU has access to only one indoor court – it's owned by Brookings business Larson Manufacturing – for up to three hours per day. Any other training consists of conditioning and mental reps.
Although not ideal, it hasn't prevented the Jacks from getting this far, and they don't intend to settle for the newfound respectability.
"We need to focus on the discipline and the intensity and the focus – that stuff where you only need one tennis court or you don't even have to be hitting balls to work on," said Engdahl, who speaks from experience as a former SDSU player. "We're going to work with the resources we have and hopefully do some exercises that work on their mental endurance and physical endurance and making the next stet up in that way."
At a Glance
Making gains: The SDSU men advanced two doubles teams into the Round of 32 at the ITA Regional meet over the weekend. The women advanced in singles and doubles.