The Marquette women's tennis team will begin play in the 2005 Conference USA tournament this afternoon at the Bayard H. Freeman Tennis Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

"We aren't going to do anything different than what we've been doing all season," head coach Jody Bronson said. "We're just going to go out and play the game the way we know we can."

Eleventh-seeded Marquette will play its first match at noon against sixth- seeded Louisville. The Golden Eagles (5-15) and Cardinals competed against each other at the end of February and the match went to Louisville, 5-2, that included a win from sophomore Callan Smith at No. 1 singles.

Last year the Marquette squad was seeded sixth going into the conference tournament. After beating Southern Miss, 4-1, the Golden Eagles advanced to the quarterfinals, where they lost to Houston, 0-4. They then lost to Charlotte, 4-1, in the consolation round, ultimately placing seventh.

This year's tournament includes four teams ranked in the nation's top 70. Top-seeded Tulane — which has three titles in the last four seasons, including back-to-back championships in 2003 and 2004 — is ranked No. 15.

Host-school Texas Christian, ranked No. 19 and coming off three straight appearances in the C-USA final, earned the No. 2 seed.

South Florida, the No. 56 team in the country, was awarded the No. 3 seed and No. 70 Houston has been seeded fourth.

With a winning percentage of only 25 this year, the Golden Eagles know what they must do in order to improve for next season in a brand new conference.

"This season wasn't very good," freshman Erin Watkins said. "We'd have good, intense practices and then it wouldn't show in the matches. We needed to work on being up in our match and then not losing. We weren't able to take advantage of the opportunities."

Part of the reason the Golden Eagles did not play to their full potential may have been because the team was so young. With three freshmen and five sophomores, Bronson felt the lack of leadership hurt the Marquette squad.

"We were a young team and not having the leaders step up didn't help," Bronson said. "We haven't been playing smart, and we need to utilize all the good things we do in practice and put them into our matches."

The tournament will get underway today with four first round matches beginning at 9 a.m. The quarterfinals are scheduled to begin Friday at noon, while the semifinals will take place Saturday, also beginning at noon. A ninth-place consolation round will be played Friday and Saturday. The championship match is slated for Sunday at noon.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 21 2005.