KEARNEY, Neb. — The No. 13 St. Mary's University Women's Tennis team had an extremely long day in playing two matches on Saturday, spending almost 11 hours on the courts at the Ernest Grundy Tennis Center in a pair of 4-3 losses to Missouri Western State and Augustana (SD).
Junior
Janel Ospanova (Karaganda, Kazakhstan), playing in her first match of the spring, and senior
Gia Posito (Houston) teamed up for the first time in 2025-26 for a 6-2 win at No. 3, tying doubles at one match each before the Missouri Western (2-1) team of Claudia Pastor and Johanna Priedite was able to get a break of serve on
Alessia Terlizzi (Andria, Italy) and
Sarah Wooten (Beaumont, Texas) for a 6-4 win on court two and earn the team point.
Five of the six singles matches against the Griffons were decided in straight sets, with Terlizzi winning 6-1, 6-2 on court one and junior
Selina Wu (San Gabriel, Calif.) winning 6-3, 6-3 at line two. Posito fought tough in the first set, dropping a 7-5 tiebreaker to No. 33 Priedite; however, she fell 6-1 in the second set. With only six courts at the center and the men playing at the same time, the singles matches were broken into waves, so with the match tied at 2-2, lines four through six took the courts.
The Griffons won two of the final three matches with freshman
Isabella Olsson (Sverige, Sweden) winning 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 at No. 4 singles for the final Rattlers' (4-4) point.
Head Coach
Bill Macom shuffled the doubles pairings for the afternoon match against Augustana, teaming up Terlizzi and Posito, who finished as runners-up at the ITA South Central Regional in the fall at No. 1, and the duo responded with a 7-6 (7-2) victory to clinch the first point of the match after Olsson and Wu won 6-4 at line two.
"The women had a rough road trip," Macom said. "But at least we ended it with gaining the doubles point, and were able to get Janel back in the lineup. We need to get a lot more focused in our forthcoming practices to improve the consistency in the bottom of our lineup."
Both Terlizzi and Wu won at the same two spots, doing so in three sets after both dropped the opening set. Terlizzi defeated No. 24 Maria Fiacan 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-2, while Wu won 3-6, 6-4, 7-5. The Vikings (8-1) won the final four singles matches to complete the comeback and win 4-3.
The Rattlers return home to host Hawai'i Pacific on March 5 at 2 p.m. at the Rohrbach Tennis Complex.
