SPOKANE, Wash. - Whitworth heads to this weekend's Northwest Conference tennis tournament as the fifth-seed, ready to face fourth-seeded Pacific Lutheran in a first round match up on Friday morning. The tournament will take place at the Yakima Tennis Club, in Yakima, Washington. First round matches will be Friday morning. Semifinal or 5th place matches will follow later in the day.

Click here for the NWC Tournament web site. The site includes tournament schedules, brackets and directions.

Whitworth goes into the tournament with an overall record of 9-11 and a Northwest Conference mark of 8-8. The Pirates finished fifth in the regular season conference standings, leading to the #5 seed in the tournament.

Last week Whitworth dropped their last two regular season contests. The Bucs lost 7-2 to Lewis-Clark State College, but the points came at #3 doubles and #6 singles by default. In the last regular season conference match, Whitworth was beaten 8-1 by Whitman. Linh Aven and Katie Troxell won 8-4 at #1 doubles for the Bucs' only point. However, Betsy Johnson, Taryn Smith and Justine Hays all took their opponents to a tiebreaker in singles play, creating a closer match than the final score indicates.

The match up with PLU will be the third meeting of the season between the teams. Both of the previous matches were close. The Lutes beat the Pirates 5-4 in Tacoma and then beat Whitworth 6-3 in Spokane. If the Pirates defeat PLU, then a semifinal match-up with top-seeded Linfield would follow. If the Bucs lose the first round match, Whitworth would play either #3 Whitman or #6 Willamette to decide fifth and sixth places.