Sept. 19, 2013
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Several members of Penn State women's tennis team will make their fall debuts when they compete in the 17th annual Cissie Leary Tournament in Philadelphia. The tournament, hosted by Penn, will begin Friday and run through Sunday at the Hamlin Tennis Center and Levy Tennis Pavilion.
The tournament will feature two singles flights and one doubles flight. Both singles flights and the lone doubles flight will be 64-person draws. The tournament will begin early Friday morning.
It is the third consecutive year the Nittany Lions will participate in the tournament held in honor of the late Penn coach who passed away in 1996 after battling scleroderma. Last year Penn State brought three players to the event, all leaving with multiple victories, seven in all.
Fifteen teams will be competing in the tournament this weekend including the Nittany Lions and host Penn Quakers. Penn State will once again be the only team competing from the Big Ten. In-state schools Drexel and Temple will join Akron, Bowdoin, Columbia, Cornell, Delaware, LIU Brooklyn, Maryland, Rhode Island, Richmond and St. John's to make up this year's field.
The Nittany Lions will be back in action in two weeks when they head to the Yale Invite. Senior Chelsea Utting (Peachtree City, Ga.) will have a chance to head out west and compete in the ITA All-American Championships where she was named an alternate for the qualifying round.