After a third place finish at the WIAC team tournament last year, the UW-Eau Claire women’s tennis team has high expectations coming into the 2014-2015 season despite a turnover at the top of the teams roster.

After losing the reigning WIAC player of the year Katie Gillman and No. 2 doubles player Mary Frassetto to graduation, the Blugolds will look to young talent to continue their recent success over the past few seasons.

Despite the loss of the two seniors, head coach Tom Gillman said the team tries not to worry about what they have lost talent-wise when coming into a new season.

“We try not to think about what talent we lost from the past season,” Gillman said. “Our program is good at moving on, and instead building up the confidence of our younger girls moving up a spot in the lineup.”

To open up the season over the past weekend, Eau Claire earned three top-three finishes at the UW-Whitewater Tournament.

At No. 2 doubles, junior Colleen McCullough and freshman Sarah Henderson reached the championship, and took second place after falling to host Whitewater in a tightly contested match 8-9 (7).

McCullough and Henderson defeated Jenny Graham and Ali Bublitz of UW- La Crosse 9-7 and Maggie Bolton and Llora Waldman of UW-Oshkosh 8-3 on the way to the finals.

Senior Maddie Johnson finished in third place winning two of three matches at No. 1 singles.  After beating Brianna Theobald of UW-Oshkosh 6-0, 6-0, Johnson fell to Shirlene Luk of Grinnell (Iowa) 4-6, 3-6.  Johnson then took down Bryanne Blanton of La Crosse in the third place match 7-6 (4), 6-4.

At No. 3 singles, sophomore Olivia Gallagher won two of her three matches taking third place. After defeating Rachel Wabas of La Crosse 7-5, 6-3, Gallagher would fall to Alex Talyansky of Whitewater 0-6, 1-6.  In the third place match, Gallagher went on to beat Briannah Wilson of Grinnell 8-3.

After facing Whitewater over the weekend, Gillman said that he can tell that the Blugolds can be competitive at every position.

“After our performances against Whitewater I know that we can be competitive at all positions this season,” Gillman said. “However, there is always new things for us to be working on to get better.”

According to Gillman, his expectations for the team coming into the season is a team setting things in motion and moving quickly and efficiently on the court while making quick decisions.

As the No. 1 singles competitor Johnson had similar expectations to Gillman, but believes her team outright can be a conference contender because of how deep the roster is.

 “Realistically, my expectation for the season is to finish as one of the top two teams in the conference,” Johnson said. “We lost two of our best players last year, but have nine girls returning and three very talented freshmen. Everyone is ready to step up and put in the work needed to reach this goal.”

Although the team does have high expectations for themselves, McCullough said they also know there is quite a bit of room for improvement.

“One area where there’s always room for improvement is working on our footwork and movement on the court,” McCullough said.  “Fixing movement problems would in result help solve some hitting errors because we will hit more soundly if we are better set for each shot.”

Gillman said this group of girls is a very hard working coachable group, and they know what they need to do to get better as the season gets into full swing.

The Blugolds travel to Green Bay, Wis. next weekend where they will face Elmhurst College on Friday, September 5 at 7 p.m.