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Monday, March 18, 2024
The Observer

Irish to face No. 17 Virginia Commonwealth this weekend

A competitive No. 14 Virginia Commonwealth will be the first of three stops this weekend for the women's tennis team.The Irish are set to meet Virginia Commonwealth on Friday and will move on to play Boston College Saturday and Virginia Tech Sunday. "This weekend is going to be really important for us. They're all big matches for different reasons," said coach Jay Louderback. "We're playing some Big East teams and someone ranked ahead of us. The girls are also really excited to play a team ranked ahead of them." The Virginia Commonwealth Rams (6-0) are returning from a 4-3 win against Old Dominion Sunday. This weekend's match will be the first time the Irish have met the Rams, who went undefeated until the NCAA tournament last year. "They'll definitely be our toughest competition this weekend," sophomore Lauren Connelly said. "We all look at it as an opportunity to get our confidence going as we begin the season."From Virginia Commonwealth, the Irish will travel three hours to compete against Boston College (2-0) in Blacksburg, Va. Last year's match between the two resulted in an Irish 6-1 victory. The Boston College Eagles are also fresh off a win against Columbia 6-1 last weekend. Despite their history of victories against the Eagles, Connelly anticipates a competitive match. "We just go out and play hard every match," Connelly said. No. 69 Virginia Tech (6-0) will be looking for their seventh win of the season after defeating Radford 7-0 last weekend. Also at stake for the Hokies this weekend will be the retribution of last year's 6-1 loss to the Irish last year. To secure success this weekend, it will be essential for the Irish to win the doubles point. "It's a lot more important than it used to be to get the doubles point," Louderback said. Everyone is getting so good that it's becoming hard to win four singles matches."