DeLand, Fla. - The Stetson women's tennis team will begin the fall portion of its 2010-11 schedule on Friday with a short trip up Speedway Boulevard to Daytona Beach to compete in the Embry-Riddle Open. The tournament is one of five events on the schedule for Head Coach Sasha Schmid's Hatters this autumn, including a pair of prestigious Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) championships.
Stetson will send its nationally 56th-ranked doubles duo of senior Unnati Purushotham (Hyderabad, India) and sophomore Carolina de los Santos (Montevideo, Uruguay) to Los Angeles, Calif. in early October for the D'Novo ITA All-American Championships (Oct. 2-10). The UNF Invitational (Oct. 15-17) in Jacksonville then precedes the ITA Southeast Regionals in Athens, Ga. the following weekend before the fall campaign concludes with the Nov. 5-7 UCF Invitational in Orlando.
Purushotham and de los Santos join a pair of returners and four freshmen to make up the 2010-11 version of the Hatters. Junior Shannon Gunning (Boca Raton, Fla.) and sophomore Jen Miller (Tampa, Fla.) are also back from last year's squad that tied a Division I era program record with 18 spring dual match wins.
The quartet of rookies that will make their college debuts this weekend are Susana Aguirre (Guyaquil, Ecuador), Lindsey Cable (Gainesville, Fla.), MayaBlue Stauffer-MacDowell (Asheville, N.C.) and Sierra Sullivan (Austin, Texas). All four have enjoyed significant success in high school and junior tennis and will be counted on to help lead the Hatters forward after the graduation of three All-Atlantic Sun caliber players in Breanna Atkinson, Valentina Galbarini and Katherine Nowicki.
For this weekend's Embry-Riddle Open, the Hatters and host Eagles will be joined by competitors from Bethune-Cookman, Jacksonville, Florida Southern and Rollins. Gunning, Miller, Purushotham and de los Santos are all entered in the Gold singles bracket while the four freshmen will all contend for the Blue singles title. Three of Stetson's four doubles combinations will compete in the Gold section of the draw (Purushotham/de los Santos, Gunning/Cable and Miller/Stauffer-MacDowell) while Aguirre and Sullivan will pair up to shoot for the Blue doubles crown.
