Women tennis players from across the SEC headed to Auburn last weekend to play in the SEC Fall Coaches' Classic.
Auburn hosted the tournament at the Yarbrough Tennis Center Sept. 10-12, with all 12 Southeastern Conference teams represented.
"It's a great event to kick off the fall, and it tells how you match up with teams nationally because the SEC is so tough," said Auburn head coach Tim Gray.
The team comes into the fall season with a young roster that consists mostly of freshmen and sophomores.
The Tigers managed 11 combined wins in singles and doubles performances.
"I think we did really well," said Auburn assistant coach Christine Gray. "We fought our way through some really tough matches. Even if we didn't pull off the win, we saw the effort that we wanted to see. We are probably more prepared at this point in the season than we have been before."
The tournament was primarily a warm-up, and no overall champions were declared.
In the competition, players were divided into eight-person "flights," with winners playing other winners and losers playing other losers.
There was no elimination from play because of the number of losses.
Friday's competition got underway with Auburn scoring wins in both singles and doubles play.
In singles action, sophomores Paulina Schippers and Plamena Kurteva were able to take their early matches. Schippers defeated Kentucky's Caitlin McGraw in a 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 three-set match, while Kurteva claimed her match against Kentucky's Elle Coldrion, with a 6-1, 6-0 win.
"For this being the first tournament, I think the whole team did good," Schippers said. "We all came out really strong, and we worked hard."
Later, in Friday's doubles matches, Auburn's duo of sophomore Caroline Thornton and freshman Maria Arechavaleta teamed up to defeat Ole Miss' Laura van de Stroet and Vivian Vlaar in an 8-5 win.
The Auburn duo later lost to South Carolina.
Also in doubles, junior Taylor Schreimann and Kurteva overcame the efforts of Arkansas' Emily Carbone and Stephanie Roy in a close 9-8 win.
Schreimann, the only junior on the team, said competition in an SEC tournament is tough.
"The SEC is always gonna have a lot of talent, so we were expecting the competition," Schreimann said. "We have been working hard over the summer with our practicing and conditioning, and we were definitely ready for the tournament."
During day two of the tournament, Auburn had more wins in both singles and doubles.
"We still need to work on being consistent and constructing points, but I feel we have done well with the level of competition we are facing," said head coach Tim Gray. "We set high goals for each day and trying to attain those goals can be tough, but we have put in the effort and reached a lot of them."
The team had singles victories in Schippers' defeat of Arkansas' Jade Frampton (6-1, 6-3) and freshman Olivia Bennett's defeat of Alabama's Antonia Foehse.
Schippers, however, fell to Vanderbilt in the final round, and Bennett couldn't hold off Georgia's Alina Jerjomina in the Flight 3-A semifinals.
Auburn's Schippers and freshman Emily Newton teamed up for a doubles victory, taking the win from a Mississippi State twosome.
Schreimann and Kurteva accounted for the other doubles victory Saturday.
The two defeated Kentucky's Nicole Scates and Meredith Morrow, 8-1.
The Tigers also had wins during the final day of competition.
Newton won in singles play, with her 6-4, 6-2 defeat of Mississippi State's Mariia Ryzhova.
Facing Kentucky's Misha Testerman, Kurteva won in a tie-breaking match, 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-0, to finish the tournament.
Also in singles, Schreimann defeated Kentucky's Nicole Scates in a 6-0, 6-1 pounding.
Bennett earned a consolation win against an Arkansas Razorback to complete her Auburn debut.
The match was cut short because the Arkansas player had to catch a flight.
To determine a winner, the two played a tie-breaking third set, and Bennett snagged the victory.
The team will head to Providence. R.I. Sept. 24-26 for the Brown Invitational at Brown University.
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