2020-21 WOMEN'S TENNIS SEASON PREVIEW

After a shortened 2019-20 season and 182 days away from the sport, the Golden Eagles women's tennis team will be back in action on Saturday vs. Olivet College starting at 2 p.m. The match will take place at NorthPointe Christian High School and will be streamed live at cugoldeneagles.com/watch.

COACHING STAFF

Head Coach Elijah Yi enters his fourth season as the ring leader of the program and he holds a 26-14 record in his first three seasons to be the programs all-time winningest coach since its origination in 2011-12. Elijah brings back his wife Lauren Yi as an assistant for the 2020-21 season, as well as stand out Cornerstone tennis athlete Marissa Menichini who graduated just last season with a career win total of 44 with 22 victories in both singles and doubles play. 

GROWING THE PROGRAM

The Cornerstone women's tennis program has 17 athletes on the roster in 2020-21 (13 pictured above NOTE - others not pictured due to COVID-19 international restrictions). Along with 17 athletes, the program sees seven student assistants to help with managerial and coaching duties this year. The program continues to grow each year with 15 athletes recorded in 2019-20, and 13 two years prior. CU continues to build a high quality variety and JV program that can compete at the highest level in the WHAC. 

HISTORY VS. OLIVET

Cornerstone and Olivet have met each of the last three seasons for their only three matches against each other in program history and the Golden Eagles have gone a perfect 3-0 as a team. In 2018, Cornerstone won 6-3, while in the spring of 2019 and 2020 CU earned 9-0 and 5-0 sweeps over the Comets. 

The Seniors

Cornerstone has just three seniors in the program this year with two of them being the twins Amanda and Nicole VerHulst. The VerHulst twins have been very significant in their first three years at CU as Nicole leads the program with 47 career wins and Amanda ranks third with 36. The two athletes also rank first and second in program history in singles wins for a season as Amanda recorded 13 in 2018-19 and Nicole recorded 12 in the same season. 

2019-20 SEASON RECAP

The Golden Eagles went 4-2 overall before the season was cut short due to COVID-19 with just one conference game being played. Alayna Bowman came in and played a huge role for CU last season going 9-2 overall and 4-1 at the number one singles position. The Rockford native looks to build off a strong freshman season at the number one singles position. 

COME OUT AND SUPPORT CU SATURDAY AT 2 P.M.