After a long weekend of matches played in Jackson, Miss., Loyola’s tennis team may have returned beaten, but they look to their upcoming tournament matches with hope and excitement.

      The teams played one game on Friday, and split a double header on Saturday, with the women winning the second game of the double header, but falling in the first two matches. These games were the last of the regular season for the Pack.

   Loyola started off this final weekend playing Belhaven on Friday with both the women and men falling to their opponents. They continued onto Saturday, where they were hopeful in their games against Jackson State and Tougaloo College, a team both the men and women had defeated over a month ago.

     The Wolf Pack’s men and women came up short against Belhaven on Friday, as well as Saturday’s first game against Jackson State. The women pulled through, however, and came up with a win against Tougaloo while the men were defeated in a very close match that ended at 4-5.

 Meghan de Baroncelli, biology sophomore, plays #1 singles and #1 doubles for Loyola. She is excited for the future of her team, as it is a younger team.

     “We have a fairly young team, with only two seniors: a boy and a girl. But we have some new freshmen who I think have a lot of potential and I look forward to working with them,” de Baroncelli said.

She also looks back onto last year for some encouragement and hope for the upcoming championship games.

“Last year we played Spring Hill our first match for conference and we lost. But I feel like this year we’ll be better. I’m not sure who we’re going to play but we’ve improved a lot, and I think we can definitely pull through with a win,” de Baroncelli said.

Sarah Szigeti can be reached at [email protected]