SAN ANTONIO — The No. 48 St. Mary's women's tennis team had won eight matches in a row prior to matching up with No. 3 Abilene Christian University on Sunday.
The Eagles handed the Rattlers a 6-3 loss, crushing the Rattlers' hopes of another upset on the season.
The Lady Rattlers fell into an early 1-2 hole by falling at two of the three doubles positions.
Notably, the No. 2 team of Christina Lopez and
Felicity Delgado won a crushing 8-0 over ACU's Micha Hermsdorf and Kaysie Hermsdorf.
In singles, the St. Mary's women were overmatched at most positions, losing in straight sets at all but two matches. Those two matches were Rattler victories.
At No. 1 singles, undefeated No. 28
Mariana Rong continued her unbeaten streak in a straight-set victory over ACU's No. 32 Micah Hermsdorf 6-0, 6-3.
Also bringing in a victory for St. Mary's was freshman Christina Lopez at the No. 3 position. Lopez cruised in the first set 6-0 and closed out the match 6-4 in the second over ACU's Brittney Reed.
“They are a highly ranked team for a reason,” said St. Mary's head coach
Lisa Dausin. “They exploited our weakness and now we know where to focus our attention before the conference tournament.”
St. Mary's women's tennis moves to 11-4 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.
