PROVO -- The No. 51 BYU women's tennis team will travel back to the Midwest and the South for another grueling road trip. The Cougars (1-4, 1-0) start the trip with a match at No. 61 Purdue (1-3) Saturday afternoon. It will not get any easier as BYU will play No. 18 Notre Dame, No. 8 Tennessee and No. 36 Mississippi all within the week.
"I just want the team to play really aggressive," BYU head coach Craig Manning said. "We played real well the first road trip, but we played a little tentative on the second one. We've been real aggressive in practice and I just want that to carry over into the matches this week."
Manning plans to mix up the doubles teams this week to improve BYU's chances of winning the doubles point. Brooke Beverley will team with Dominique Reynolds at the No. 1 spot, Lindsay Ferrell and Elizaveta Khoudoiarova will compete at No. 2 and Lu Oswald and Nicole Schneider will take over at the No. 3 spot. Singles positions will most likely stay the same, but the Cougars are going to need to be hitting on all cylinders to win these matches on the road.
"We're pretty much healthy finally so I'm hoping we can get things going," Manning said. "Tennessee and Notre Dame are both great teams so we'll have to play well.
The Cougars have been competitive on the previous two road trips, but have yet to win on the road this season. BYU has not won a match since its opening match of the season at home against Air Force. The Cougars hit the road right after that match and have played four Top-50 opponents, including No. 1 Georgia. Following this road trip, with matches Saturday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the Cougars will come back home for a Mar. 1 match with Kansas. That match begins a seven-match homestand for the Cougars.