The University of Montana women’s tennis team will compete in the UC Irvine Invitational Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Individual competition can be expected to match that seen at the Intercollegiate Tennis Regional and will include individuals from several nationally ranked university programs.

Players selected to travel with the Grizzlies will include senior Kayla Moyse, juniors Rebecca and Amanda Bran and freshmen Maddy Soule, Constance Alexander and Heather Davidson.

Schools competing at University of California-Irvine’s Ross Tennis Complex will include Nevada, UC Irvine, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, UC riverside, San Diego and Big Sky power Northern Arizona.

Through individual play so far this season, Griz Nation has seen some impressive results from the Bran sisters of Melbourne, Australia, with Rebecca playing into the third round (of 32) of the main draw at ITA Regionals while Amanda played her way through the single-elimination consolation feed to the third round.

Rebecca leads the Grizzlies so far this fall with a record of 7-5. Amanda currently sits at 4-5 in singles competition.

Also notable for the UM team, which finished out the 2009 spring season tied for fourth in Big Sky Conference play at 4-4, has been the performance of a few freshman additions.

Texan Maddy Soule has notched some significant matches this fall, upsetting ranked players Silvia Irimescu of Idaho and Liz Fournier of Washington State at the Eastern Washington/ Gonzaga Invite. Soule is 5-5 in singles play for the fall season.

Freshmen Constance Alexander and Heather Davidson, both of California, have traveled to all three fall tournaments with the Grizzlies. Alexander is 4-5 for the season while Davidson is 5-5.

Senior Kayla Moyse, out of Ashland, Ore., also represented UM at the Wilson ITA Regional in Las Vegas in October and has played to a singles record of 5-5 for the season.

While many coaches have entered a relative off-season for the winter months, UM coach Steve Ascher eagerly embraces the chance for his young team to gain a little more match experience against some top-quality teams, saying, “One nice thing about this tournament is that we’ve got Northern Arizona in our conference and Santa Clara on the schedule for the spring, so we will have a good opportunity to see a few of the teams that we will be competing against later during the season.”

Ascher continues, “Likewise, it will be great to go down and play some new, fresh opponents. The teams showing up this weekend will be as good, if not better, than those that we will be facing in spring of 2010.

“It’s been about a month since we played in the ITA Regional, and the girls have been working incredibly hard. They’ve made some significant improvements in their games and it will be nice to see how they perform. The competitive level of this tournament will be on par with what they faced at regionals, and it will be great to see how the girls step up, as well as to give them a chance to really apply all that we have been working on in practice.”

Big Sky opponent Northern Arizona will be fresh off a strong performance in the Southwest Collegiate Invitational in Albuquerque New Mexico. In the SW Collegiate Invite, Lumberjack Edit Suhajda went 4-0 for the weekend.

Santa Clara, which the Grizzlies meet again February 20 in Portland Ore., played last in the ITA Western Regional, with freshman Kellie Lamble progressing to the round of 32 to headline for the Bruins.