TOWSON, Md. – After 11 matches on the road and one inside the Coppermine Racquet and Fitness in Pikesville to begin the 2021 season, the Towson tennis team will finally play a match at the Tiger Tennis Complex. Jamie Peterson's team is scheduled to host Villanova (Wednesday), Drexel (Friday) and Loyola (Saturday) this week.
 
Towson's top doubles duo of Themis Haliou and Alexa Martinez has won four of its last six matches, including a 6-1 victory last weekend at George Mason.
 
Amelia Lawson has earned back-to-back straight set victories at No. 3 singles.
 
Sarah Pospischill leads the team in singles victories with five. The sophomore is 2-2 at No. 4, has two wins in the No. 5 spot and is 1-0 at No. 6.
 
Towson (2-10) has a 4-2 victory over Norfolk State (March 7) and shutout Delaware State (February 20). In that match, the Tigers won 15 of 16 sets.  
 
Three of losses have been at the hands of teams that were ranked in the top ten in the East Region – Liberty, James Madison and Navy. Three others have been to top teams in the Colonial Athletic Association – William & Mary, Elon and the College of Charleston.
 
SCOUTING VILLANOVA (Wednesday, March 31, 3 p.m.)
Villanova is 1-2 with a victory over Lehigh and 4-3 losses to both Delaware and Temple. The Wildcats No. 1 doubles team of Lexi DeNucci and Annalise Klopfer is undefeated.
 
SCOUTING DREXEL (Friday, April 2, 3 p.m.)
Drexel has started the season with two straight wins, beating Seton Hall and La Salle. Salma Ziouti and Sarka Richterova were named CAA Doubles Team of the Week after the Seton Hall win.
 
SCOUTING LOYOLA (Saturday, April 3, 11 a.m.)
Loyola has won three-of-four matches in 2021, with victories over La Salle, Chestnut Hill and Salisbury and a loss to Lehigh. Kateri Martin is 3-1 overall in both singles and doubles and is a two-time All-Patriot League First Team honoree. Towson has beaten the Greyhounds four straight times, but the two teams haven't played since 2015.
 
STEPPING UP
Themis Haliou has emerged as Towson's top singles player this season. The junior has victories over Liberty, Delaware State and Radford. She also plays No. 1 doubles with Alexa Martinez. That duo is 5-6 with wins over Delaware State, Elon, South Carolina State, Norfolk State and George Mason.
 
HEY, ALEXA
Alexa Martinez has the most experience on the Towson roster. The senior from the John Carroll School in Harford County played in her 50^th career singles match against William & Mary (she is now at 56) and has made 49 career doubles appearances for the Tigers. As a sophomore in 2018-19, she played both No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles.
 
INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR
Over half of the 2021 roster was born outside of the United States. Antonia and Amelia Lawson hail from Wellington, New Zealand, nearly 8,800 miles away from Towson. Jessica Assenmacher is a native of Johannesburg, South Africa, which is 8,085 miles from campus. Themis Haliou is from Strovolos, Cyrus, a town 5,625 miles from Towson. Sarah Pospischill was born and raised in Reisenburg, Austria, which is almost 4,400 miles away. Lea Kosanovic was born in Belgrade, Serbia (4,675 miles from Towson), but her family moved to the United States when she was five years old and she attended Walter Johnson High School in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.
 
STUDENT-ATHLETES
During the fall semester, the Towson tennis team was one of five to finish with a grade point average of 3.5 or better. The 11-person squad averaged 3.635, with Jessica Assenmacher, Alexa Martinez and Lea Kosanovic earning perfect 4.0's. Seven student-athletes made the Dean's List. The cumulative GPA for the Towson tennis team is 3.527.
 
DID YOU KNOW?
Head coach Jamie Peterson was two-time team captain on the Towson men's tennis team from 1991-95 and finished his career with a 64-35 record, the fourth-most wins and fourth-best winning percentage in program history. Peterson helped lead the Tigers to back-to-back appearances in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) championship in 1993 and 1994.
 
TIGERS IN THE COMMUNITY    
The Towson University athletics department deems community service as one of its highest priorities to give back to the Greater Baltimore area. Towson was on track to have its 8th consecutive year of over 10,000 hours of community service in 2019-20 before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down all activity.  Towson finished with 7,527 hours last year, good for third in the NCAA Teamworks HelperHelper competition. Towson ranked #1 nationally for community service and won the 2018 National Championship for Community Service through the HelperHelper NCAA Team Works Competition.  Towson also won the 2018 Volunteer of the Year Award from Susan G. Komen of Maryland.