The Marquette women's tennis team came away with three wins in singles Sunday and lost three separate doubles matches to Western Michigan in the third day of the Bronco Invitational in Kalamazoo, Mich.

The six-team invitational included host Western Michigan, Indiana, Ball State, Illinois-Chicago, Minnesota and Marquette.

Sophomores Erin Watkins, Maria Calbeto, and junior Katie Donovan came away with singles victories on Sunday.

"I think we were rusty," said Marquette head coach Jody Bronson. "There were a lot of ups and downs, but we're going to work on aiming for a higher level of consistency in practice."

The team is coming off of a disappointing 2004-'05 season in which they finished 5-15 overall, without individual or team berths in either the Conference USA or NCAA tournaments. Despite last season's woes, losing is not something Bronson is accustomed to, for she has led Marquette to 12 winning seasons going into her 19th year at the helm. They are shooting for .500 as a team this year.

"I'm not going to say we don't care about winning in the fall, because the matches do count [on each player's individual record]," she said. "We want them to win in the fall, but we're also using this time to get them to the point where they'll play their best tennis from January to May. You're looking for improvement."

The team will play in four different weekend events this fall, the last of which will be October 20-23. The season then resumes January 20 against the Fighting Illini in Champaign, Ill.

The fall season will also be an evaluation period for Bronson and assistant coach Valerie Vladea. The lineup is not set as of yet, and will remain unannounced until their first match in January. With the loss of the team's number one singles player Callan Smith and number three Elsa Dokter, they'll be looking for new players to fill holes and veterans to possibly move up.

Sophomore Maria Calbeto is a strong candidate for the number one position. She was number two in singles matches as a freshman last year. However, nothing has been determined as of yet, Bronson said.

Vladea is in her first season on staff. She graduated from Northwestern earlier this year where she played tennis.

"[Jody and I] were looking for things that you don't see in practice this weekend as we watched the matches," Vladea said. "I think they improved as the weekend went on."

Marquette plays again this weekend at the Milwaukee Tennis Classic, running Friday through Sunday. It is the only home tournament on the team's fall schedule.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on September 20, 2005.