Erickson rolling along for women's tennis team

Carol Erickson’s tennis career began when she was just hitting the double-digits at the age of 10 years old. Now as a senior at Cal Poly, the tennis captain is confidently leading her team through a challenging season building up toward the Big West Conference Championships at the end of next month.

Erickson has remained a strong force for the Mustangs for the last four years and is looking to finish out her collegiate career on top. In June, she will graduate with a degree in business administration and a minor in finance.

“This season has been great so far,” Erickson said. “It is my senior year and the team camaraderie has never been better. My teammates make everything so easy. They are so motivated and I learn just as much from them as they do from me.”

Erickson also holds the interesting role of being the only upperclassman on the team with the most college playing experience on the team. The rest of the team consists of two sophomores and five freshmen.

“We are going to miss her,” Cal Poly head coach Hugh Bream said. “She has been the hardest working player at practice for three and a half years, the rest of the girls watch her take the extra time every day to work on her game and it has an effect.”

The team has a tough schedule with one third of its matches coming from the top-25 teams in the nation, like Pac-10 forces USC, Stanford, UCLA and Cal.

The women just came off a long weekend on the road, defeating UC Riverside on Friday and then winning at perennial Big West power Long Beach State on Saturday.

Erickson and the women are about to embark on their most concentrated part of the season in the coming weeks with an overall record of 5-7 for the season and 2-2 in the Big West.

The next match for the Mustang women’s tennis team is at UC Santa Barbara at noon March 17.

In the 2006 season, Erickson earned All-Big West Conference titles for her third season in a row, making first-team doubles with the now-graduated Samantha Waller and second team for singles.

Throughout her tennis career, Erickson has held multiple winning records but has always continued to challenge herself. Early this season, Erickson played defending NCAA champion Susie Babos of Cal, losing narrowly.

“Erickson is continually battling the best tennis players match-in and match-out,” Bream said.

Erickson has had an exciting four years with a long list of highlights, one of which came early on her freshman year. Erickson led the Mustangs to a victory over the University of San Diego, ranked 42nd in the nation at the time, with her tie-breaking last-match victory.

“Graduating and not having tennis every day is going to be a life-altering change,” Erickson said. “I have played for 11 years and it is something that will always be here – something I can always go back to.”

After graduation, Erickson plans to pursue a career as a financial adviser and continue her life of tennis playing in satellite games over the summer.