The WSU women’s tennis team will escape the cold and travel out to Southern California this Friday, to face off in the three-day Beach Tennis Tournament held in Long Beach, Calif.

The Cougars will only take underclassmen to this match, to help build confidence and experience Sophomores Yang Lee, Savanna Ly-Nguyen and Hikaru Sato and freshmen Maddie Egan, Pang Jittakoat and Carla Quadflieg will compete.

“It’s all undergrad teammates, so it is exciting to travel with them. It feels weird that the whole team is not going, but I am actually stoked to travel with the new people,” Lee said.

California State University, Long Beach will host the tournament. The Cougars will compete against players from California State University, Fullerton, University of California, Riverside, University of California, Loyola Marymount University and California State University, Northridge.

WSU hosted its first tournament of the year last weekend. Head coach Lisa Hart said she felt her team performed well.

“I am really proud of the way they performed. I think everyone gave their best effort, and I think they were rewarded a lot of wins on the court,” Hart said. “It was exciting to see all of their hard work and practice pay off.”

Ly-Nguyen is looking forward to this weekend’s tournament after a great performance in the Cougar Classic. She placed second in the Crimson Flight Single final vs. WSU teammate Sato and took second against Utah State in the Crimson Flight Doubles title with Quadflieg as her partner.

“I am really excited for the competition. It is our second tournament and we have been practicing really hard for the last month and a half, and it’s really exciting to go compete,” Ly-Nguyen said.

The Cougar Classic was an event to get things swinging for the Cougars, but Hart said she knows that this trip will give her younger athletes a lot of experience and prepare them for the upcoming season.

“I think we are playing really good tennis right now, it will be great to see the different style of players and different teams … this fall is just a good time to get a lot of matches, keep working on things, and trying to get better every day,” Hart said.