DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University women's tennis team welcomes Eastern Michigan to the West Tennis Courts for the season finale at 11:30 a.m. CT Friday.
"It's exciting," said NIU head coach
Tanya Mahefu about playing at home. "It will be nice to have our fans come and watch us. It's going to be great to honor our seniors at home. It's just a perfect setting for us to be outside."
Friday's contest with the Eagles is a special one, as NIU (5-16, 0-7) will say goodbye to its three seniors;
Evelyn Youel (Crystal Lake, Ill./Crystal Lake South),
Abigail Dekkinga (Allegan, Mich./Allegan Senior) and
Michelle Erasmus.
The Huskies enter Friday's contest having had three different players post wins in the last three matches. Senior
Evelyn Youel (Crystal Lake, Ill./Crystal Lake South) was the latest Huskie to find herself in the win column. She defeated Ball State's Victoria Sec, 6-3, 1-6, 10-6, in last weekend's match.
The week before, it was
Maria Potsi (Athens, Greece/1st Gel Cholargou) scoring a victory over Rita Pedroso of Akron, while
Brodie Walker (Bristol, England/Bristol Grammar School) had a five-match winning streak ended in the Akron match. Mahefu is hoping the team can put it all together in front of the home fans.
"Our goal for this week was to finish strong," she said. "The novelty of being home and outside and everybody watching, I'm expecting us to have a good match and everybody step up and for it to be a good day for the team."
Fans can get updates from the matches this week via Twitter through @niuwomenstennis.
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