CORPUS CHRISTI – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) Vaqueros women's tennis team is looking to close the regular season on a hot streak as it takes on the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (AMCC) Islanders Saturday in a South Texas Showdown, presented by Rally Credit Union, and Southland Conference (SLC) match. 
 
The Vaqueros (9-6, 6-2 SLC) and Islanders (22-2, 7-1 SLC) will play at 11 a.m. at the Thomas J. Henry Tennis Center. These teams met on Feb. 13 in Edinburg and the Islanders captured a 5-2 win. Saturday's match will be the first conference contest between the programs, which have met twice per season for 12 years in a row. UTRGV is 3-41 all-time against AMCC and last defeated the Islanders in Feb. 2018. 
 
The Vaqueros are riding a four-match winning streak into the regular season finale. After a rough patch about a month into the season, head coach West Nott felt his group did a good job of resetting and hitting the back half of the season with a new fire and "pep in their step," and he's feeling good about their ability to take care of business Saturday. 
 
"We're playing team ball right now. We're winning the doubles points and we're getting a lot of first sets out there. I think the group has done a great job in practice which has translated to match play," Nott said. "It's going to take everything to win. We haven't beat them for a while, so we're going to come out firing and hopefully capitalize on that doubles point and really take care of our unforced errors during this match. We have to be consistent. We have to run down all the balls, play long points, be super competitive and have a really positive attitude out there. If we can combine all those things together, we have a good chance to come through." 
 
Corpus has won 10 in a row since dropping a conference match to Northwestern State, the current unbeaten leader in the Southland team standings. UTRGV and AMCC sit in the top half of the conference standings with just over a week remaining before the conference tournament in Louisiana. The upcoming match could play a big part in determining tournament seeding. The match will also impact the South Texas Showdown standings, which Corpus currently leads, 28-22, with four events worth 10 points remaining. 
 
Even though there's a lot on the line, Nott isn't letting his team dwell on all the outside circumstances. He wants them focused on bringing their best effort to the courts and doing all they can to #BeatCorpus.
 
"We're really not thinking too much about all the other stuff. We're just trying to control what we can control during the match and really worry about our side of the court," Nott said. "If we can handle our emotions and handle the pressure, I think good things are going to happen." 

Support UTRGV Women's Tennis | Become a Fan on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter | Follow us on Instagram | Follow us on YouTube