Broncos Face First Road Test of the Season This Weekend

WHAT'S NEXT?

The Boise State women's tennis team heads south to Salt Lake City, Utah, this weekend for its first road trip of the season. The Broncos will take on Pac-12 Utah on Saturday at 1 p.m. and Dixie State on Sunday at 9 a.m. The 2-1 Broncos will look to improve upon their early season record on this pivotal road trip before returning to Boise the following week.

FOLLOW THE MATCHES

Fans can follow the match against Utah by clicking on the "Live Scoring" or "Live Stream" links below. Coverage of the Dixie State match will be unavailable.

Boise State at Utah Live State: http://www.statbroadcast.com/events/statmonitr.php?gid=utah
Boise State at Utah Live Stream: https://utahutes.com/sports/2018/2/16/tennis-video-streaming.aspx

THE OPPONENTS

The Utes will enter the contest an impressive 3-1 including wins over Idaho State and Weber State. However, Utah's only blemish on its schedule was at the hands of No. 24 Texas A&M. A win against the Pac-12 program would be Boise State's first such win since defeating Colorado 4-3 at home in 2019.

The Broncos will be facing off against Dixie State for the second since the Trailblazers made their jump to Division 1, move made two years ago. Dixie State holds an 0-5 record including a pair of losses to BYU and a loss to Utah State.

LAST TIME OUT

Last weekend the Broncos fell in a tight 5-2 battle when they played host to BYU. The Cougars were able to steal the doubles point 2-1 after Vanessa Timm and Nicole Discenza were edged 7-5 on court three despite a great effort from the duo.

Although the Broncos got impressive singles showings from Joana Baptista and Pauline Ernstberger, the team was unable to claw their way back to take the lead. Though the team originally had another match scheduled for the weekend against Montana, the match was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.

Despite the team loss, Ernstberger's performance was impressive enough to earn her Mountain West Player of the Week honors. It is the second week in a row a Bronco has been named to the award after Baptista did so last weekend.

STATS TO WATCH FOR

Baptista earned yet another straight-set victory in her singles match against BYU, meaning she is now 3-0 on the season and now has seven straight-set singles wins in only ten career duals. The redshirt-freshman has been an absolute force for the Broncos this season leading the way at the No. 2 singles slot.

Ernstberger continued to show why she was worth the hype coming into the season, as the true-freshman ground her way to another hard-earned straight-set win. The German took down BYU's Helen Jiao 7-6(3), 6-3 to improve to 3-0, and has yet to lose a set in both singles and doubles in her young collegiate career.

Holly Stewart and Ernstberger have been the anchor for the Bronco doubles attack this season, as the duo is undefeated in all three matches. The two have played at the No. 2 position in all contests and have been a reliable source of energy when the Blue and Orange open their matches.

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