Cal Poly Women's Tennis Opens Fall Season Friday at Cal
9/29/2022 9:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — A trip to Berkeley for the three-day Cal Fall Invite will officially kick off the fall portion of the 2022-23 season for the Cal Poly women's tennis program.
Singles and doubles action at the invitational starts 8 a.m. Friday, with matches on Saturday and Sunday scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. The Mustangs will encounter players from 14 teams: Arizona State, BYU, Cal, Fresno State, Gonzaga, Iowa State, Pacific, Sacramento State, Saint Mary's, San Francisco, San Jose State, Santa Clara, Stanford and UC Davis.
Draws for the invitational will be released Thursday afternoon and you can follow matches played on the Channing Tennis Courts via a live stream.
The tournament will signal the start of a new era for the Mustangs under first-year head coach Ellie Edles Williams, who spent the 2021-22 season as the interim head coach at Cal State Fullerton and was an assistant on the Cal Poly staff in 2013-14 and 2019-20. Williams was also an associate head coach for the Mustangs from 2020-21.
Williams takes over a Cal Poly team that is looking to build off one of its most successful seasons in program history. Last year, the Mustangs finished with a 17-7 overall record, the program's second most wins in a single season in Division I history and their most since 2003. The team went 8-1 in Big West play to finish second during the regular season, their highest finish since 2011, and advanced to the Big West Tournament championship match for the second consecutive year where they fell to No. 27 UC Santa Barbara 4-1.
Cal Poly was ranked No. 70 in the final Intercollegiate Tennis Association team poll last season, marking the second straight year the program ended the season ranked among the top 75 teams in the nation.
The Mustangs return seven players from last year's team, including four who received All-Conference honors — graduate student Kim Bhunu (first team singles, first team doubles), redshirt junior Delanie Dunkle (second team doubles, sophomore Peyton Dunkle (honorable mention doubles) and redshirt junior Melissa LaMette (second team doubles, honorable mention singles). Cal Poly also has three talented freshmen on its 2022-23 roster — Kennedy Buntrock, Sarah MacCallum and Sasha Ozerets.
After the Call Fall Invite, Cal Poly heads to Stanford on Oct. 14-18 for the ITA Northwest Regional Championships. The Mustangs will compete in the Saint Mary's College Invite on Oct. 28-30 and the Jack Kramer Club Invitational in Ranchos Palos Verdes on Nov. 4-6 to wrap up the fall season. The ITA Fall National Championships are set for Nov. 2-6 in San Diego.
Players Mentioned
