#14 Women's Tennis Wins Close Battle at Lubbock Christian

LUBBOCK, Texas – It may have taken five hours, but the St. Mary's Women's Tennis team remained undefeated on the season with a 4-3 win at Lubbock Christian on Friday afternoon.
 
The Rattlers, ranked 14th in the nation by the ITA, moved to 6-0 on the season and began their defense of the 2022 Lone Star Conference title with the win over the newest team in the league, the Lady Chaps.
 
"It was a very up and down day with a lot of momentum shots," Director of Tennis Bill Macom said. "We had difficulty holding serve after breaking our opponents serves way too much. It wasn't our best tennis, collectively, but we had some great energy and composure at the end to pull out the win."
 
The No. 7 nationally ranked duo of senior Ashley Penshorn (Montgomery, Texas) and junior Kyndall Quiroz (San Antonio) at No. 1 and the sixth-ranked team in the region of senior Angela Vargas (Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico) and Bailey Godwin at No. 2 both won doubles matches by identical scores of 6-4 to give the Rattlers an early lead.
 
Quiroz continued her doubles momentum into singles action, winning 6-1, 6-3 to give the Rattlers the 2-0 advantage.
 
The Lady Chaps knotted the score, winning at No. 4 and No. 2 for the 2-2 team tally.
 
Penshorn dropped the first set, 6-4, but buckled down to win the next two, 6-0, 6-3 to remain undefeated in dual action.
 
Lubbock Christian responded again, winning a hard-fought three-set battle at No. 5 so the pressure was on freshman Stela Sifuentes (Eagle Pass, Texas) and she responded in a great way. After losing the first set in a tiebreaker she knotted things up with a tiebreaker win of her own in the second set and pulled off the 6-2 win in the decider, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-2.
 
As soon as the match concluded, the Rattlers hopped on a bus as they play at 10 a.m. in Wichita Falls against Midwestern State.