The Dayton women's tennis team is wrapping up its spring season and is preparing for the upcoming Atlantic 10 Tournament.

While the team was dealt its first A-10 loss by Duquesne March 27, the Flyers are looking ahead to tournament play.

"I am really looking forward to the A-10 Tournament," senior Nikki Dzubay said. "It is a lot of tennis put into a short amount of time, but the competition is good and I have a lot of fun getting some great matches in."

The Flyers stand at 7-7 for the spring season and will play the last match of the season on April 2 against Wright State.

"Our team has done really well this season," sophomore Laina Grote said. "We have a rather even record and have won some really

close matches, which is really encouraging. We have put our all into every match so I think there is nothing to feel bad about."

Dzubay agreed that the team has performed well over the course of the spring season.

"The team is doing really well; we have gotten some great wins against tough competition," Dzubay said. "Overall, I am happy

with our performance. We definitely have had some matches we should have won, but it just helps us learn what we need to work on. Every week we look at our match we just played and pick out things we need to work on at practice. We have all been trying to improve on a lot of parts of our game from serves to footwork; it varies from week to week."

Dzubay is the lone senior on the team, with the rest of the team composed of four freshmen, four sophomores and one junior.

"We have done very well this year considering how young our team is," freshman Loni Dickerhoof

said. "We are looking forward to the last bit of our season and are hoping to play some of our best matches at the A-10 Tournament

in a few weeks."

The A-10 Tournament begins April17 and matches will be played in Monroeville, Pa. "We need to stay positive and keep working hard all the way to the A-10 Tournament," Grote said. "If we use our last couple matches as strong practice for what is to come in the tournament, and keep up our hard work over spring break, we should be rather successful."

Additionally, Dzubay believes that the team needs to "keep pushing

(themselves0 at practice to get ready for matches."

"We have a long season so it is hard to always stay focused," Dzubay said. "To be successful we have to have a match mind frame at all times so we are ready when we have tough competition."

Finally, team chemistry will be an important factor in postseason play.

"Even though we may not win every match, our team is tightly knit and there for each other," Grote said. "If one girl loses, and someone else on the team is in a close match, you get over your loss and cheer for the person still in their match. Everything we do is about the team, rather than individuals. That's often hard to come by in tennis, and is part of the reason why our team is so much fun."