GEORGETOWN – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros women's tennis team is hitting the road for the first time this season to play a trio of matches in central Texas this weekend. 
 
UTRGV (0-1) will play at Southwestern (0-0) Friday at 3 p.m. at the Marvin D. Henderson Sr. Tennis Courts. Then the Vaqueros head to St. Mary's (0-0) for a 12 p.m. match Saturday at the Rohrbach Stadium Tennis Complex. They end the trip with a 9 a.m. match Sunday against Our Lady of the Lake (1-2) at the Blossom Tennis Center. 
 
The Vaqueros are 2-0 against Southwestern and picked up an 8-1 win in Georgetown last season. UTRGV is 5-4 against St. Mary's after beating the Rattlers 5-2 in Edinburg last year. This will be the first match between the Vaqueros and OLLU. 
 
"We've played some of these teams before and we've had the upper hand, so we feel pretty confident going into these matches. But every year is different. We have a new team, they have new teams. We're hoping to stack some wins up and go 3-0 this weekend. Hopefully we take advantage," UTRGV head coach West Nott said. 
 
In Sunday's season opener, the Vaqueros dropped a tough match against rival Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. But Nott saw some good things, particularly from junior Kristal Dule, who earned a 5-7, 6-4, 1-0 (10:6) win over Kateryna Rublevska at No. 5 singles. He was excited by the doubles play as senior Lea Karren and junior Marjorie Souza dominated their No. 1 match and the new duo of Dule and sophomore Yaiza Vazquez came very close to clinching the doubles point. 
 
Overall, UTRGV's effort in the home opener was admirable across the board. The Vaqueros have spent time correcting things they saw in that first match throughout the week in practice. They've been doing a lot of drilling, focusing on keeping the ball deep. 
 
Facing familiar teams has the Vaqueros feeling like this weekend will help them get on a roll. 
 
"We're feeling very good right now. It was a tough match against Corpus, but we had good team chemistry and everyone played well," Souza said. "We're confident and excited for this weekend. We are expecting good matches. I think this weekend is for us to get more confident, get more match play. We have good expectations, honestly." 

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