LAWTON, Okla. — Needing a win to stay within striking distance of a possible regular season championship, the No. 14 St. Mary's University Women's Tennis team defeated Cameron 5-2 on Thursday afternoon.
The Rattlers improve to 16-2 overall and 8-1 in Lone Star Conference play, one game back from No. 3 Midwestern State, with the two teams facing each other in the regular season finale on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Wichita Falls.
The tandem of senior
Paula Garrote (Cartagena, Spain) and junior
Alessia Terlizzi (Andria, Italy) returned to the win column at number three doubles, surrendering only one game in the 6-1 victory but the Aggies (6-11, 3-7) were able to win the other two courts for the first point of the day.
"We came out too slow in the doubles and never caught up to them," said Director of Tennis
Bill Macom. "Fortunately, we did a good job keeping our rallies long in the singles and had a pretty good serving day, which made a huge difference."
Garrote put the Rattlers on the scoreboard with her straight sets win at number four, 6-3, 6-4. Sophomore
Janel Ospanova (Karaganda, Kazakhstan) doubled the team score with her win on court two. Ospanova dropped the first set 6-1 to #53 Anastasia Uspenskaia but buckled down to win the next two sets 6-3, 6-2.
Sophomore
Selina Wu (San Gabriel, Calif.), ranked 48th in the ITA Poll this week, needed a tiebreak in the second set, but managed the sweep at number one, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5). Fellow sophomore
Gia Posito (Houston) clinched the match for the Rattlers for the third consecutive outing, doing so in dominant fashion with a 6-1, 6-0 victory at line five.
Junior
Stela Sifuentes (Eagle Pass, Texas) didn't drop a single game at number six singles in scoring the fifth point for the Gold and Blue.
