Women's Tennis Bounces Back For Win Over #19 LCU

SAN ANTONIO – The St. Mary's University Women's Tennis team returned to their winning ways on Saturday with a 5-2 victory against #19 Lubbock Christian, handing the Lady Chaps just their third loss of the season.
 
"It was a great bounce-back win after yesterday's loss," said Director of Tennis Bill Macom. "We did a great job taking the doubles success and turning it into enough singles wins to clinch the match. However, we need to take it one match at a time and turn up our conditioning moving forward to meet our goals."
 
Freshman Janel Ospanova (Karaganda, Kazakhstan) and sophomore Stela Sifuentes (Eagle Pass, Texas) dropped only one game on court three for the 6-1 win and the Rattlers (7-4, 1-1 Lone Star Conference) clinched the doubles point as junior Karen Kondo (Tokyo, Japan) and freshman Selina Wu (San Gabriel, Calif.) won their seventh-straight bout and improved to 9-1 with their 6-3 win.
 
Lubbock Christian (15-3, 0-2 Lone Star) won the first singles match on court five to tie the team score at 1-1, but Wu finished moments later with her 6-3, 6-2 victory at line two to give the lead right back to the Rattlers.
 
The Lady Chaps tied the score again at 2-2 with a victory on court six, but the Rattlers won the final three singles matches for their seventh win of the year.
 
Kondo dropped her first set on court four, 6-2, but flipped the script to win the next two 6-2, 6-2. Sophomore Alessia Terlizzi (Andria, Italy) got a late break of serve in the first set at number three singles to win 7-5 and carried the momentum to a 6-4 win in set two to clinch the victory for StMU. Junior Paula Garrote (Alicante, Spain) wrapped up the day with her 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win on court one.
 
The Rattlers remain at home, hosting UT Tyler and DBU on March 29 and 30.