Cohen, Sooners Release 2018 Schedule

Oklahoma women’s tennis head coach Audra Cohen and the Sooners announced the spring schedule on Tuesday.

“As a team, we are so excited to kick off the 2018 season,” said Cohen.

“We worked hard during fall tournament play to put ourselves in position to be successful this spring. We’re also excited to welcome new players who will bring energy to our program.”

In their second season under Cohen, the Sooners will look to build on a 14-8 overall record and 4-5 Big 12 campaign in 2017.

The spring schedule features 12 regular season home matches and seven matchups with teams that finished in last year’s ITA top-25.

Oklahoma opens the season with a road trip to Auburn, Ala., where they’ll face host Auburn and Georgia State on Jan. 20.

The Sooners will be on the road again Jan. 26-28, when they will participate in ITA Kickoff Weekend for the first time since 2014.

OU has been grouped with USC, Clemson and host South Carolina as the No. 4 seed in the pool.

Should the Sooners win two matches at Kickoff Weekend, they will earn a bid to the 2018 ITA National Indoor Championships, hosted by the University of Wisconsin, Feb. 9-12.

OU’s home opener is scheduled for Feb. 3, when the squad will face Arkansas in the first competition of a five-match home stand that also includes Old Dominion (Feb.10), North Texas (Feb.14), Pacific (Feb.17) and USF (Feb. 23) before a road match with in-state rival Tulsa on March 3.

The Sooners go head-to-head with NC State on March 9 at the USTA National Campus at Lake Nona in Orlando, Fla., the only off-campus tennis venue in the U.S. built specifically for college tennis.

Cohen and the Sooners open conference action at home with West Virginia on March 16 followed by Iowa State on March 18.

The Sooners will head south to face Texas on March 23, then visit Baylor on March 25 before returning home to host Oklahoma State (March 31), Wichita State (April 1) and Oral Roberts in a doubleheader (April 5).

Oklahoma will wrap up the regular season at Kansas State (April 20) and Kansas (April 22) before heading south for the Big 12 Conference Championships held in Austin, Texas, April 25-29.

Admission to home matches is always free. For updates, follow @OU_WTennis on Twitter.

By Ann Marcelli

This article was originally published by soonersports.com