With the temperatures rising and the sun out a little bit longer, people are once again coming out in shorts and T-shirts and getting active outdoors. For the women’s club tennis team, this means getting back out on the Carmichael Gymnasium tennis courts and practicing again for nationals, which are being held this month.

Adriana Weil, a junior in biological sciences who is in her second year with the team, said the team’s season has been pretty good, and the team has been playing in tournaments to prepare for nationals, one as recent as two weeks ago.

“We played in the Southern Sectional two weeks ago, which was in Chattanooga, Tenn.,” Weil said. “We had to qualify in the gold bracket — top six or top eight to qualify for nationals. We were able to do that. We placed sixth out of 24 universities. It went really well for us, and we were happy with the outcome. And I think we played pretty well.”

Weil has set some high goals for her season.

“Going to nationals,” she said. ” That’s the key goal of the spring semester. Everybody wants to pitch in because it’s 10 players that get to go to nationals — five girls and five guys.”

Sarah Puckett, a sophomore in English who is in her first year on the team, also has set some goals for the season.

“[My goals are] focusing on getting the strokes better and getting to know the girls and playing as many matches as possible,” Puckett said.

Women’s captain Amelia Blankenship, a senior in chemistry, is excited about nationals, which are being held in Cary this year.

“It’s fabulous,” Blankenship said. “Definitely cuts down on travel expenses, and we are considered the host school. We are really excited, and we plan to take tents and banners and any kind of N.C. State material out there, hopefully represent well.”

Blankenship said despite not having individual matches with certain schools, competition is still very deep in club tennis.

“Competition is the best when we play tournaments. North Carolina has a strong competition level,” she said. “The tournaments we go to we get to play people all across the South.”

With it being Blankenship’s last year playing, she has her eyes on nationals, and the team being able to win it all.

“You couldn’t put a price tag on it,” Blankenship said.” The best we’ve ever done is considered the gold bracket, and we did that my freshman year. So right now my goal is to get into the gold bracket. We actually got into the gold bracket at the Southern Tournament last weekend. We were really excited about that and hope to do well at nationals.”