Liberty Reveals 2016-17 Schedule
9/7/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
2016-17 Women's Tennis Schedule
Liberty Women's Tennis Head Coach Jeff Maren released the team's schedule for the upcoming 2016-17 season. Maren has been in charge of the Lady Flames program since 2012. Under Maren's direction, Liberty reached the 2016 Big South Women's Championship title match after reaching the semifinals in the previous three seasons. The fall and spring schedules feature several strong opponents.
"We are very excited about the schedule that we have in place for this season. It will require our girls to raise their games and play as a team in order to find success," Maren said. "I believe that it is vital that we stretch and challenge our players to maximize their skills so that they will have the best opportunity to play high-level tennis when it counts the most – our conference tournament in April."
The Lady Flames open the fall slate this Friday through Sunday at the Elon Invite in Elon, N.C. The following weekend (Sept. 16-18), Liberty will be tested at the Mid-Atlantic Cup in College Park, Md. At the same time, the other half of the squad will be competing at the William & Mary 24th Annual Tribe Invitational in Williamsburg, Va.
From Sept. 30 through Oct. 2, the Lady Flames play at the Wake Forest Invitational. Liberty will then play at the ITA Atlantic Regional Championships, hosted by Old Dominion, on Oct. 14-18. The Lady Flames wrap up the month of October at the Virginia Tech Invite on Oct. 28-30. Liberty concludes its fall schedule with a trip to Dallas, Texas for the SMU Invite on Nov. 4-6.
After opening the spring season against Wofford the previous two seasons, the Lady Flames will host Big South foe Longwood on Feb. 1. Liberty will also meet conference opponents Radford (Feb. 15) and UNC Asheville (Feb. 18) in the month of February.
The Lady Flames will take on Big South teams Charleston Southern (March 11), Presbyterian (March 26) and Gardner-Webb (March 31) in the month of March before wrapping up regular season league play against Winthrop (April 1) and Campbell (April 11) in April. The Big South Conference Championship will be played in Winston-Salem, N.C., from April 20-23.
Liberty's spring slate also features non-conference opponents ETSU, Louisville, Wake Forest, Tennessee, Furman, Florida Atlantic, UCF, George Washington, USF, Tulsa, Maryland, East Carolina, James Madison and Charlotte.
During the spring 2016 season, the Lady Flames posted a 15-10 (8-1 Big South) overall record. Liberty's eight wins in Big South play was the most in program history. Liberty earned the top seed for the Big South Women's Tennis Championship. After quarterfinal and semifinal wins over Radford and Charleston Southern, the Lady Flames lost, 4-3, to Winthrop in the finals.
Liberty returns eight members from the 2015-16 team. The Lady Flames are led by three seniors, Emily Groeneveld, Mariely Hassey and Maria Khval. Groeneveld ranks seventh in program history in winning percentage (.653) for players with 30 or more victories. Hassey is ranked tied for 10th in program history in singles wins with 49. Khval is fourth in Liberty women's tennis history in singles wins (62) and fifth in doubles wins (65). She also is tied for fifth in Lady Flames history for most doubles wins in a season (25).
Evangeline Crist is the lone junior on this year's squad. She is tied for 1st for most doubles wins in a season (28), second in doubles wins in a season (25), first in winning percentage for players with 30 or more victories (55-16, .775), eighth in career singles wins (50) and eighth in career doubles wins (55).
Anna Dollar, Audrey Brown, Rebekah Anderson, and Aleksandra Panchenko make up a four-player sophomore class. As a freshman, Dollar won 25 doubles matches, which was tied for fifth most in program history.
Liberty welcomes newcomer Eugenia Camacho, a native of Costa Rica, to the team. Camacho has been regularly ranked inside the ITF Top 500 world rankings and has reached numerous ITF tournament finals and semifinals in both singles action and doubles play.
