Whitworth College will compete at this weekend's Northwest Conference tennis tournament as the fifth seed, of six teams that qualified for the event. The Pirates will play fourth-seeded Puget Sound on Friday morning at 8:00 am in a first round match. This is the first season that the NWC tournament has consisted of only the top six teams. Top-seeded Pacific Lutheran and #2 seed Whitman have first round byes. The winner of the Whitworth-UPS match will go on to the semifinals and play PLU on Saturday. The loser will play the loser of a match between #3 Linfield and #6 Willamette for 5th and 6th in the final standings. Whitworth goes into the tournament with an overall record of 8-9 and an NWC mark of 8-7. The Pirates battled nagging injuries over the last couple of weeks, but still fought hard in a 4-3 loss to UPS and two victories over Willamette. Whitworth goes into the tournament as healthy as the team has been all season. Last season fifth-seeded Whitworth upset fourth-seeded UPS in the first round, giving the Pirates a fourth place finish in the final conference standings. |
