PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – The first matches of the Spring 2024 season are set for the reigning champions of both the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi men's and women's tennis programs, as the squads head to Prairie View A&M for doubleheaders Thursday beginning at 11 a.m.
Both the men and women are the reigning Southland Conference Tournament champions, while the women are also the defending SLC regular season champions. The two programs have combined for eight championships over the last three seasons.
The women's side brings a lot of experience into the new year as five seniors grace the roster in
Emma Aucagne,
Valeria Cherfus,
Victoire Delattre,
Naomi Moi McKenzie, and
Kateryna Rublevska. Every senior has been a part of at least two of the three championship squads that has won the last three straight SLC Tournaments with Aucagne, Delattre, and Rublevska having spent every one of those years as a champion.
The men return their No. 1 singles player in senior
Avery Zavala who also played No. 1 doubles. In that position, he clinched the doubles point in the finals of the conference tournament 7-6 (6) against New Orleans which played a big role in A&M-Corpus Christi's 4-3 win to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
He will be looked to as a leader for a team that features a lot of youth with four freshmen and two sophomores, including returner
Lucas Schurdevin who played mainly at No. 5 and No.6 singles to help the team win its 22
nd conference championship.
"We are incredibly excited for these high character Islanders to start this Championship journey together as a family! The team unity, leadership and work ethic of this group is amazing, and they are a joy to coach! We have tremendous leaders on both the Men's and Women's teams!! Every season is really like the same movie – there's adversity, injury, highs, and lows, and you just have to keep choosing to take the character road! At the end of it all it's about the CHOICE to take the character road through good times and bad," said head coach
Steve Moore.
A&M-Corpus Christi has one of the winningest programs in the history of the Southland Conference for any sport. The men have won 22 titles including the tournament in 2022, while the women have won 11 titles and have made three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
Men's tennis has reached the NCAA Tournament 10 times and the women six with half of those coming in the last three consecutive years.
A&M-Corpus Christi will look to become the first women's program to ever win four consecutive SLC Tournament titles and has already made six NCAA Tournaments in the past 10 seasons.
The Islanders are 37-0 against the PVAMU women and 40-0 against the men.
A&M-Corpus Christi Tennis
- 16 NCAA Tournaments
- 33 SLC Championships
- 4 Top-40 National Rankings
- 3.0 GPA 41 Straight Semesters
- Islanders have received a No. 3 seed at the NCAA Tournament three times
- Women's tennis has cracked the ITA top-75 national rankings three times
- Men's tennis has cracked the ITA national rankings 10 consecutive years
- Ranked nationally in NCAA DI as high as No. 35 for the men and No. 60 for the women
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