CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A long time rivalry is coming back to town as the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi men's and women's tennis teams will host UTRGV in part one of the annual South Texas Showdown series, presented by Rally Credit Union.
The men will kick things off at 10 a.m. with the women to follow afterwards at roughly 1 p.m. The matches won't count towards conference play yet, but will towards the South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union, an annual rivalry series in which A&M-Corpus Christi and UTRGV compete against each other in 12 sports. A&M-Corpus Christi's biggest all-time advantage is in tennis.
Under head coach
Steve Moore, the women are to 30-1 over UTRGV while the men are 28-4 over the Vaqueros. The women have won 15 straight against the Vaqueros, not having dropped a match to them since the 2018 season.
"We are incredibly excited for this great rivalry and the intensity this match always brings!" said Moore. "We have strong respect for UTRGV, their coaches and players. We have to come hungry, mentally tough, and ready to fight each present point separately like warriors! We always bring the same mindset and focus only on the two things we can control: play each present point separately with intensity, and have the best team unity in the nation! That will be exactly the same tomorrow and every match the rest of the year. Go Islanders!"
The last time these two programs met was in the regular season finale last season where both Islanders teams defeated UTRGV to win the Southland Conference regular season championship and clinch the South Texas Showdown for A&M-Corpus Christi.
It had completed a perfect 5-0 conference season for the men, their first undefeated record in SLC since the 2021 season. It marked their 23
rd overall championship while the women had secured their 14
th title as two of the winningest programs across all sports in the 62-year history of conference.
Both teams hold conference tennis records in regular season titles, conference tournament titles, and NCAA tournament appearances with a record-breaking 17 times between the two.
While the matches won't count towards the league standings yet, it will still be a good marker for Islanders Tennis who will be going for 17 straight championship seasons this year once the conference slate does start.
A&M-Corpus Christi Tennis
- 17 NCAA Tournaments
- 37 SLC Championships
- 4 Top-40 National Rankings
- 3.0 GPA 43 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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