‘Cats capture PBC title

As a result of the thrashing that the Lady Bobcats’ tennis team laid upon USC Spartanburg last Saturday, they accomplished something that has never been done before in school history.

The Georgia College & State University women’s tennis team has won the 2003 Peach Belt Conference Regular Season Championship.

This marks the fourth time in school history the Lady Bobcats have won the crown, but unlike in 1993, 1997 and 1999, when they were crowned Co-Champions, this time the title is all theirs, alone.

The Lady Bobcats didn’t just win this season, they dominated, by going 13-0 overall and 9-0 in the conference.

Head Coach Steve Barsby never excepted his team to go undefeated.

“In our conference, you never expect to go undefeated. We were expecting to be good in the conference, but going through undefeated with one junior, two sophomores, and four freshmen is nice.”

The Lady Bobcats have demonstrated a will to win, especially in the close matches that could have gone either way.

“The overall competitive atmosphere of the team is at a level where, they go out there and don’t think they’re ever going to lose. They feel like they can win every match, and it has helped in the big matches.”

Sophomore transfer student Luiza Biktyakova, is the oldest member of the tennis team, but even she is playing in her first season here at GC&SU. When asked about her team’s unbeaten streak, Biktyakova stated, “It’s very good to feel unbeatable, and we’ll try to win as many matches as we can.”

The new task for the team begins this week as the Lady Bobcats tackle three of the four top ranked teams in the nation, in the West Florida Tournament in Pensacola.

Biktyakova commented, “We’ll just try hard and see what happens, but I really think we can do it, and hopefully everything is going to work out.”

In a response to the upcoming challenges in the tournament, Coach Barsby replied, “When girls come here, I tell them they’re going to be here to compete for a national title, and to do that, you have to play good teams, so we’ll see where we’re at.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 4 2003. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry