The Eastern men’s and women’s tennis teams will travel to Birmingham, Ala., Wednesday, to take on Jacksonville State.

The men’s team is coming off a 4-3 loss to Morehead State Sunday, which dropped their record to 7-7 on the season.

The women were able to pick up a victory by that same score and improved their record to 5-8, including 1-1 in Ohio Valley Conference play.

Because of the bad weather forecast in Jacksonville, Ala., the matches will be played at Samford’s indoor facilities in Birmingham instead of on Jacksonville State’s home court.

Eastern head coach John Blackburn believes that doubles competitions will play a major role in deciding whether or not the Panthers will find success against Jacksonville State.

“We will be looking for more consistent play during our double’s competition,” Blackburn said. “We also need to remain confident throughout the matches.”

Eastern senior Jeff Rutherford agreed that confidence would be a key factor against Jacksonville State as well as playing as a team.

“Whenever you play these matches, it’s not good enough if just a few people perform well. We need everyone to play well all around,” he said. “We can only accomplish these goals if we play as a team and keep our confidence high.”

Jacksonville State is off to a school-best 12-1 record and according to College Tennis Online rankings, they boast the 74th ranked doubles team with senior Scott Robertson and junior Eduardo Saratt.

The pair is 11-1 overall, while going 9-1 at No. 2 doubles and 2-0 in No.1 doubles.

Blackburn believes one of the main reasons for Jacksonville State’s success this season is due to the amount of returning players that they have this season.

“Jacksonville State is returning a lot of players and they have a great amount of experience from those players,” he said. “In addition to having experience, Jacksonville State is overall a very talented team.”

Rutherford said that he expects an extremely competitive match with Jacksonville State.

“They are returning a lot of players that have helped them continually improve into a really solid team,” Rutherford said.

Rutherford said that Eastern’s support from teammates and intensity levels will be strengths against the Gamecocks.

“We always try to support one another when we are at our matches,” he said. “We always try to give a 110 percent.”

Blackburn believes that both the men’s and women’s squads will be focused on continuing to improve.

“With it still being early in the conference season, I expect everybody to continue to improve from one match to the other,” he said.

The JSU women’s team is 8-3 and 2-0 in OVC. The Panthers lost 6-1 against the Gamecocks last season.

Following their match with Jacksonville State, the Panthers will travel to Tennessee for Saturday and Sunday matches against fellow OVC competitors Austin Peay and Tennessee Martin.

Neil Schneider can be reached at 581-7944 or at jnschneider@eiu.edu.

Sophomore Cara Huck celebrates after winning her match against Morehead State on Sunday at Darling Courts. The Panthers face Jacksonville State Wednesday in Birmingham, Ala. (Karolina Strack/The Daily Eastern News)

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