The UW Oshkosh women’s tennis team attended the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Women’s Tennis Championship over the weekend of Oct. 23 in Madison at Nielsen Tennis Stadium. Oshkosh tied for fourth with UW-Stevens Point with a total of 27 points in the fall season.

Head coach Rob Henshaw said that the girls really showed up strong for the championship.

“Bailey Sagen took fifth in singles as a sophomore, which is good,” Henshaw said. “Sagen and Paige Ganser took fourth in doubles, and it’s quite an accomplishment.”

Ganser, who has been playing tennis since she was five, said she is grateful for the weekend she had at the championship.

“I wish I could have done better, but there is a lot of room for improvement, and there is always next year,” Ganser said. “The whole team worked very hard this past weekend, and I was proud of them”.

Freshman Sophie Pitz said she didn’t particularly like her results for the weekend but was proud of what the team has accomplished.

“I didn’t necessarily have the outcomes I was hoping for, but as a team, I could not be more proud of how we finished overall,” Pitz said. “We managed to take fourth place out of seven, so we qualified for the NCAA tournament in the spring.”

After the weekend, Ganser said she was not discouraged but believed there were things she could work on to bring to the team next spring.

“I need to work on being more aggressive and staying competitive in matches,” Gasner said.
Pitz said she doesn’t believe the team has much to work on except focusing on the future.
“As a team, something that all of us can work on is setting a long term goal and putting our mind to the task of achieving that goal,” Pitz said. “We all have the ability to get there. It’s just focusing on the goal itself and achieving it.”

With those goals in mind, Henshaw said the girls will start preparing for the NCAA tournament where they will play against UW-Whitewater in the first round next spring.

“We have five scheduled matches for spring,” Henshaw said. “Every coach will do this differently, but I prefer to make fall heavier than spring.”

Pitz said they are determined and will start preparing for the spring and the NCAA tournament.

“Right now we are taking a week or two off, but after that it’s all seriousness,” Pitz said. “We will be hitting the gym and getting to the tennis center to hit and work on improving our game.”