The Valparaiso University tennis team has announced its 2021-2022 schedule, which will begin with a home match against Holy Cross (Ind.) on Saturday, Sept. 11 at the Valpo Tennis Complex.
The match with Holy Cross (Ind.) will be the first of a pair of fall dual matches as the Beacons will also host Grand Valley State on Saturday, Oct. 16. The Missouri Valley Conference Individual Championships will be hosted at the Valpo Tennis Complex from Oct. 8-10, marking the third time Valpo has hosted an MVC Championship event in any sport since joining the conference (women’s golf and cross country).
Valpo’s fall slate also features a trip to the Redbird Invite hosted by Illinois State, the ITA Midwest Regional at the University of Illinois and the Rocket Invitational at Toledo.
The spring semester slate will get underway on Saturday, Jan. 15 as Valpo hosts IUPUI at The Courts of Northwest Indiana. Other home nonconference opponents include SIUE (Jan. 22), Eastern Michigan (Feb. 13), Marian University (Feb. 19) and Northern Illinois (March 6). Road nonconference trips during the spring slate include Western Michigan (Feb. 6), Purdue Northwest (Feb. 12 in Park Forest, Ill.), Wayne State (Feb. 27), Butler (March 20) and Milwaukee (March 26).
The Missouri Valley Conference season will get underway on Saturday, April 2 as Valpo hosts Drake. The second of two home MVC matches will take place the following day as UNI comes to town for an April 3 date. The Beacons will make Valley trips to Missouri State (April 9), Illinois State (April 15) and Bradley (April 16) leading into the MVC Tournament, which will be hosted by Drake in Des Moines, Iowa from April 22-24.
Valpo finished the 2020-2021 slate with its highest win total since 2007. Head coach Bob Modesto’s squad compiled a four-match winning streak from Feb. 28 to March 13 with victories over Wayne State, Northern Illinois, Chicago State and Oakland. That marked Valpo’s longest winning streak since April 2007. The Beacons also thrived in the classroom in 2020-21 as Valpo Tennis earned a 3.71 GPA during the Spring 2021 semester, the highest among all Valpo programs. The squad finished with a 3.72 GPA for the 2020-21 year (both semesters) with eight players earning a 3.0 or above for the spring semester and seven garnering a 3.5 or better.
All seven scholarship players from last season are back for the 2021-22 campaign.
