ODESSA, Texas — The St. Mary's University Women's Tennis team rebounded from a pair of back-to-back heartbreaking 4-3 losses to sweep UT Permian Basin on Friday, 7-0 at the Bush Tennis Center in Odessa.
The win moves St. Mary's to 12-8 overall and 5-2 in Lone Star Conference play, while the Falcons drop to 4-12 and 0-6 in LSC action.
Doubles play started with the Rattlers' number one team of
Gia Posito (Houston) and
Alessia Terlizzi (Andria, Italy) winning 6-3. The Falcons evened the doubles sets at 1-1 by winning 6-4 at line three, setting up a showdown on court two. The freshmen team of
Isabella Olsson (Sverige, Sweden) and
Sarah Wooten (Beaumont, Texas) buckled down to get a late break of serve to win 7-5 and give the initial team point to the Gold and Blue.
"We were moving very slowly in the doubles and were quite lucky to claim that point," said Director of Tennis
Bill Macom. "Fortunately, everyone turned it up a notch at the start of singles and was able to sustain their leads for the sweep."
Five of the six singles matches were decided in straight sets, and Terlizzi, Posito and freshman
Breeze Simon (Dallas) all kept their opponents off the scoreboard in one of the two sets.
Olsson bounced back after dropping the first set in a tiebreaker to win the next two sets at line five to complete the sweep for the Rattlers.
St. Mary's hosts Midwestern State in a key Lone Star Conference matchup on Sunday, April 19, for Senior Day at 10 a.m. StMU then closes out the regular season with its final two matches on the road.
