STORM LAKE, Iowa (Feb. 17, 2026) - The Buena Vista men's tennis team officially kicked off its 2026 spring competition schedule this past weekend and is hungry for the year as it begins the conference slate later this week.

Buena Vista is coming off a 2024-25 season where it finished with its highest overall win total in over a decade (8-11) while going 1-7 in conference play. Despite losing a handful of its starters from that team to graduation, BVU head coach Brett Groen has plenty of experience returning to this year's roster and says the team has been gearing up to getting the year going for the last few months.

"We will have quite a different look to our team this year, but will probably have the hungriest team in years,” said Groen. “We have already started to work harder and more focused then before, and I think it will pay off big time by the end of the year.  We just need to turn our experience knob up a bit." 

Buena Vista landed eighth in this year's A-R-C Preseason Coaches Poll released last month and will aim to make a push at making the A-R-C Tournament for the first time since 2015. The Beavers fell just one win short of doing so in 2023-24.

Groen is now in his 10th season at the helm and has a good mix of experience returning to go along with a group of newcomers. Back in the fall, sophomores Nick Hiney and Ryan Smith teamed up and took third at the A-R-C Individual Tournament. The team also played a pair of non-conference matches on Sept. 14 and came away with a split with a 6-1 win over Maharishi and a tough 4-3 loss to Monmouth (Ill.).

The first A-R-C showdown of the season comes on Sunday, Feb. 22 at Luther College. The team then goes on its Spring Break Trip beginning on Saturday, March 7 with a match Westminster College (Mo.) on its way to Hilton Head, S.C., where it is scheduled to play three matches during the week of March 9.

BVU resumes conference play on March 31 at home against Wartburg College. It is also scheduled to host Simpson on April 7 and is on the road the rest of the way until hosting Martin Luther College for a non-conference tilt on April 28.