Despite a young roster and difficult competition, the Eau Claire women’s tennis team overcame a difficult loss on Friday and finished third in Saturday’s Warhawk Invitational in Whitewater.

Coach Tom Gillman believes the team’s performance demonstrates great potential for the upcoming year.

“The matches were definitely difficult,” Gillman said of the weekend. “I was happy to see us come together and do well overall.”

The Lady ‘Golds, who experienced a loss of six players from last year due to graduation, are currently one of the youngest teams in the conference.

With no seniors, their roster consists of three juniors, three sophomores, and four freshmen.

Due to the drastic shift, many players were forced to step up several positions for the 2010-2011 season.

“I think of it like a string of NFL quarterbacks; you have your first, second and third strings,” Gillman said. “Your third string is used to sitting on the sideline holding a clipboard. But in our case, those third strings had to move up to first, just like that … it can be a little uneasy for them.”

The weekend competition lasted two days: On Friday, the team played UW-Whitewater, the defending WIAC champions, and lost 8-1.

The lone victory came from junior Megan Born in the no. 1 singles spot, who defeated her opponent 7-6 (7-5), 6-4. The rest of the Blugolds, however, had more difficulty, losing every set.

Team captain and junior Emily Knudson, who lost 6-4, 6-0 on Friday in singles and 8-5 in doubles with sophomore Gretchen Bachmeir, believes the weekend was a good window into the upcoming year.

“We’re an extremely young team,” she said. “This weekend was all about establishing a solid lineup ­- we definitely got to find out where we stand.”

Knudson believes the team is off to a good start.

“We were all nervous on Friday, and didn’t play as well as we would have liked,” she said. “But our coach kept pushing us, and we definitely played better the next day.”

Saturday’s tournament indeed proved better – the ladies placed third out of eight teams with 24.5 total points in the bracket style tournament. UW-Whitewater took first with 50 points, and UW-LaCrosse got second with 34.

Bachmeir was pleased with the results, and also has high hopes for the rest of the season.

“We accept the fact that we’re young and keep pushing to get better,” she said. “We need to keep thinking of ourselves as the best and can’t be intimidated by other teams.”

The Lady ‘Golds are set to host Luther College (Iowa) and the College of St. Benedict (Minn.) on Saturday at 9 a.m.