Tennis wraps up regular season play with loss
October 5, 2006
Junior Alex Albrigtson of Woodville, Wis., has made a return to tennis this fall as a member of the UW-River Falls Falcons squad.
This season, Albrigtson is the only junior on the roster. She is the only other upperclassman besides senior Becky Briese.
Albrigtson played in high school and decided this year to make a try to get back into the swing of things. She doesn’t regret it.
“I’ve missed it quite a bit,” Albrigtson said. “It’s been pretty fun. It’s kind of a neat mix of girls.”
This season, the Falcons’ record sits at 5-7 and 2-4 in WIAC,
“When we win, we win, and when we lose, we lose,” Ali Nickel said.
Evidence in Nickel’s case is 9-0 victories over Bethel and 9-0 losses to teams like UW-LaCrosse.
Although things have been slightly rough for the Falcons, Head Coach Lee Lueck still believes his team has a legitimate shot at staying in the middle tier of the WIAC.
“Our goal is still the same,” Lueck said. “To maintain a spot in the middle tier. Stout has a chance on edging us out. Each individual also has goals.”
Stout beat the Falcons earlier and holds a two-point lead in the WIAC standings, but those two points can easily be made up in the WIAC Meet.
The Falcons hosted top WIAC team UW-LaCrosse last Wednesday and played tough to begin doubles, but faltered and lost 9-0.
LaCrosse was last season’s conference champion and is always a force to be reckoned with in the WIAC. The team also had five returning seniors from last year’s championship team.
“We started off well in doubles,” he said. “Everything looked respectable. Good players know how to win and there were tight matches.”
When asked about the last week or so, Lueck was willing to talk about the good and the bad.
“The good is we beat Bethel 9-0,” Lueck said. “We had good matches — each individual match, everybody played strong.”
On Oct. 3, the Falcons hosted UW-Eau Claire. The Blugolds won the match 9-0 to end the regular season.
The WIAC Meet is Oct. 20-21 in Madison.
“We need to work on areas we need to,” Albrigtson said. “We need to get mentally prepared and psyched up.”
A number of Lueck’s players have never played at the WIAC Meet before and don’t know what to expect, and a few have and hope to prove their all.