Head Coach Jenny Hilt-Costello has an in-match moment with freshmen star Laura Bernard. Courtesy of Long Beach State Athletics.
8:00am | The Forty Niner fandom sees the Long Beach State women’s tennis team in a lot of different ways.
A collection of fit and fashionable blondes, brunettes–some lanky, some lean, some who serve and volley, some who dash and smash. They come from all parts of the globe but all of them play a lot better than your wildest dream day at summer camp.
This weekend the Beach net set (a thirty something in the polls) continues a strong start to the 2012 spring season hosting two very different opponents, Wyoming and Pacific. Wyoming is the Friday opponent and Coach Jenny Hilt Costello can get a scouting report from one of her players, Slovakian slugger, sometimes called “Special K”, Klaudia Malenovska. Two of the Cowgirls (Simona Synkova and Sasa Nemcova) traveled the globe from Klaudia’s home town of Bratislava to Laramie and now reunite (in a battle form) with Malenovska on the LBSU campus.
When Wyo gets here they will not only enjoy the Long Beach weather but also the handsome 16 courts of the Rhodes Tennis Center. The 49ers will come in as a highly regarded team who moved up from their final ranking from a year ago, and started the season ranked No. 38 in the nation.
The lofty ranking is due in large part due to the 49ers returning six players, including four that received individual merit from the beginning of the season rankings.
In the national singles rankings, (so sayeth the trusty computer) senior Rachel Manasse (Manhattan Beach) and freshman Laura Bernard are strong bets for post season honors. Manasse, who ranks in the Long Beach State’s top 10 in both singles and doubles wins, went 9-2 in the fall and Bernard went 8-5 in the fall and is the highest ranked 49er nationally at No. 117.
The Beach also had three players ranked in the singles regional rankings including Senior Anais Dallara the tiny French battler (a 10-4 overall record with a 4-3 record against ranked opponents last year) who wears her competition out with a patient and smart game.
For 2012 the veterans are senior Julie Luzar (out of Anaheim and one of the best of the domestic talent) and junior Sarah Cantlay. Also coming back is Anna Jeczmionka, a junior that posted a 6-2 record in singles play in the fall and the improving newcomer, freshman Karolina Rozenberg. Meanwhile there is Klaudia who has battled eligibility matter because of an odd NCAA ruling from back in her high school days and a ”lower extremity” issue as they say in American football.
While the athletes and the matches are what most folks find interesting, all sports at LBSU are played against a backdrop of financial matters.
Their Coach is able to use personal and professional relationships to generate over $5,700 per year in donations of tennis balls, work out gear and even team posters. Three talented photographers (Robert Burge, Les Robbins and Stewart Kishishita) get the sweet assignment of photo-chronicling the team. More than two dozen donors now contribute more than $12,000 per year to help the team and then Hilt-Costello takes the lead in raising almost $20,000 per year by running summer camps and booster days.
If you do the math you can see that this team grows their program considerably beyond the modest $30,000 annual operating expense budget. The money is vital since dorms and books and tuition has been on a steady rise. All that aside, the big bottom line for this Beach entry is the caption under the picture of Hilt-Costello and team hosting another Big West trophy as they have for eight of the last ten years.
And that view of these 49ers is as pretty as their pictures.
Courtesy of Robert Burge