The ISU women’s tennis team hasn’t competed against another college for more than two months, and the ladies will be trying to make up for lost time this weekend at the Hawkeye Invitational.

The invitational will take place in the newly built West Campus Tennis-Recreation Center in Iowa City and features four teams in a pool-play format.

Iowa State, Northern Illinois and Northern Iowa will be guests of the host Hawkeyes. The Cyclones are looking forward to a number of competitive matches this weekend, especially against Northern Iowa, which defeated Iowa State the last time they met late in the 2005 season.

Iowa is coming off a record-setting 2005-06 season and is the heavy favorite in its match-ups with the three other schools.

“A few of us really want to seek revenge [against UNI],” senior Danielle Uscinski said. “We had a lot of close matches and really want to pull that one out. You always have to have those in-state rivalries.”

Coach Michele Conlon believes the successful fall tournaments led to a productive offseason, and that, combined with good health, should result in more Cyclone victories.

“Coming off the fall season, we should be going into the spring season with some confidence; we’re very solid all the way through our lineup.”

Senior Eve Soriano sees this as an opportunity to fine-tune her game in preparation for a brutal Big 12 schedule.

“We can use it to get all those little kinks out and just get some matches in, which is what we need right now. Big 12 competition is right around the corner, and this tournament will help us prepare,” Soriano said.

Each team plays eight singles and four doubles matches against the other three teams, meaning there will be plenty of opportunities to work off the rust.

This is the first action the team will see as it begins its 14-week NCAA spring season. Next week the Cyclones host the Texas Longhorns in their initial Big 12 matchup.