Southern Oregon University has decided to discontinue its intercollegiate women's tennis program effective immediately.

The program competed as an NAIA Independent without any conference affiliation. The University announced that the program would continue as a club sport.

“While we would love to maintain tennis as an intercollegiate sport, we cannot maintain a varsity program competing against club and junior college teams, and without reasonable expectation for a home event against another 4-year intercollegiate program,” stated University Vice President Jonathan Eldridge.

The program had problems fielding a schedule since returning as an intercollegiate sport. Last year's schedule was without a home match and had 11 varsity matches and four matches against club or junior college teams. In 2008, the Raiders had one home match against a varsity opponent. The program again was having trouble fielding a schedule with just two matches tentatively scheduled as the beginning of school quickly approached.

SOU added women's tennis, women's soccer and softball during the 2000-01 school year. At that time the Athletic Department anticipated other schools in the Cascade Conference would add women's tennis. To date, however, only College of Idaho in Caldwell sponsors a women's tennis program. The next closest NAIA program in the west region is Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho. Neither program had committed to a match with SOU for the 2011 season.

“Dropping a sport is something nobody wants to do, but SOU maintains a strong protocol for compliance with Title IX, and we're committed to supporting the remainder of all our programs to the utmost of our financial abilities. We will also honor scholarships for our tennis players for the 2010-11 academic year if they choose to remain at SOU ,” stated Athletic Director Matt Sayre.

SOU had only eight students on the tennis roster but has seen a 60% increase in the number of women participating in cross country and track and field over the past two years. The University will focus on cultivating additional growth in those programs.