Women's Tennis Falters Against Mississippi College

TYLER, Texas – As it does in most close matches, the doubles point proves the difference and that's what happened for the St. Mary's Women's Tennis team on Saturday against Mississippi College.
 
The seventh-ranked tandem of senior Ashley Penshorn (Montgomery, Texas) and Kyndall Quiroz (San Antonio) won 6-2 at No. 1 doubles, but the Choctaw's won the other two positions for the first point.
 
"We gained a little more confidence than last weekend, but it wasn't enough to get us through," Director of Tennis Bill Macom said. "The doubles point was crucial today and our opponents were more aggressive at the net than us and that was the difference. Hopefully we learn something from it today, because it will be a vital point for the remainder of our schedule."
 
Each team won three singles bouts with #12 Penshorn at No. 1, senior Angela Vargas (Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila, Mexico) at No. 2 and senior Gabi Ioannou (Melbourne, Australia) at No. 4 winning for the Rattlers.
 
Penshorn only dropped two games in her 6-2, 6-0 victory, while Vargas got the late break for the 7-5 first set win and cruised in game two with the 6-1 set score. Ioannou flipped Vargas' scores winning 6-1, 7-5.
 
Quiroz fought back after dropping the first set 7-5 to win 6-4 in the second set, but eventually lost 6-3 in the final set. Freshman Alessia Terlizzi (Andria, Italy) won a tough 7-6 (7-5) tiebreaker in the first set before dropping the second set 6-2 and was trailing 4-2 when she retired.
 
The Rattlers don't have much time to dwell on the close loss as they face both #8 Central Oklahoma at UT Dallas on Saturday. First serve against the Bronchos is set for 9 a.m.