The picture for the women’s tennis team is setting up nicely after it knocked off Utah and Colorado last weekend.

The No. 55 Cougars are just outside the field for the NCAA tournament in May but still have more tennis to play before then. Brigham Young University, their opponent this week, has something else in mind. The two teams met in September 2015 in the BYU Invitational.

Sophomore Donika Bashota and senior Lize Leenknecht won the doubles final over BYU’s Taylah Beckman and Toby Miclat, 6-2.

Senior Maria Biryukova is in eighth place on the WSU all-time wins list with 85 wins. She needs two more victories to tie Andjela Kankaras and Erica Perkins for sixth all time. Biryukova expects BYU will remember the tournament from September and will want to redeem themselves.

“They will be fired up to play against us,” Biryukova said. “We have gotten much better than where we were in the fall.”

Fortunately for the Cougars this match is the only match of the weekend. This will be the first weekend where they do not play two matches since the spring season started on Jan. 15th.

Head Coach Lisa Hart said “we’re hoping that we can have a good match on Friday and take a few days off because we haven’t had that. It would be good for some of our players.”

It will be beneficial for the Cougars to get a couple of days rest before flying down to Arizona to play the University of Arizona and Arizona State, especially when the Sun Devils are 4-1 in conference play behind Cal and USC.

Leenknecht doesn’t worry, reiterating the team’s mantra “take one match at a time,” and explained it’s rising to the level of competition.

“The matches are getting tougher, and we personally are getting tougher both mentally and physically. It’s a long season but the fall season prepared us and we want to accomplish more this season.”

The Cougars take on BYU at noon on Saturday at Hollingbery Fieldhouse.

Reporting by Alex Payton