SAN ANTONIO — The No. 48 St. Mary's women's tennis team suffered a heartbreaking defeat on Thursday, narrowly falling to visiting Northeastern State University by a score of 5-4.
The Lady Rattlers were not able to sweep the doubles matches, but did come away with a 2-1 lead following the completion of doubles. Wins for St. Mary's came at the No. 2 and No. 3 positions by the scores of 8-4, and 9-7. In a heated battle, the No. 1 team of
Mariana Rong and
Ariana Saldana nearly came away with a victory, but fell in a tiebreaker losing 9-8 (10-8) to NSU's Ivana Belejova and Kristina Savchenkov.
In singles St. Mary's took a 3-1 lead as No. 28
Mariana Rong swiftly toppled NSU's Ivana Belejova at the top singles position. Northeastern State's women fought back to gain the lead, bringing the match to 4-3 after winning the No. 2, No. 5, and No. 3 singles positions in straight sets. With the match slipping, St. Mary's freshman
Joanie Bryant came away with a much-needed three-set victory at the No. 6 spot, defeating Barbora Jirickova of NSU 0-6, 6-3, 6-2 to bring the match to a 4-4 tie. At the No. 4 singles position, NSU's Jeanne Mallem defeated St. Mary's freshman Christina Lopez 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 to clinch the match for NSU.
“I think the girls all came away with a very useful lesson for the rest of the season: a match never really comes down to one point. Every single point is an opportunity to win the match individually and collectively,” St. Mary's head coach
Lisa Dausin said. “Heartbreak aside, we outperformed a very worthy opponent in doubles. I was really proud of the determination our ladies showed in stepping outside of their comfort zone to execute sound doubles strategies.”
The Lady Rattlers suffered their third straight loss and fell to 3-3 on the season.
St. Mary's University, as a Catholic Marianist University, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community service, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence. The University has six athletic national titles: men's basketball (1989–NAIA), baseball (2001–NCAA Div. II), softball (1986–NAIA and 2002–NCAA Div. II) and an individual national champion in men's golf (2006–NCAA Div. II) and a national academic championship in men's golf (2009–NCAA Div. II). St. Mary's also had more than 40 percent of its athletes named to conference, regional and/or national honor rolls this past year. St. Mary's student–athletes graduation rate is 65 percent, higher than the NCAA Division II average of 55 percent. To learn more about St. Mary's, visit www.rattlerathletics.com.
