April 15, 2009

Final Stats

San Antonio, Texas- - The Texas State women's tennis team closed out the 2009 regular season with a 5-2 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at the UTSA Tennis Complex Wednesday afternoon.

The Bobcats entered the match looking to rebound from a tough 4-3 loss against UTSA last Friday in which Texas State lost two match points after winning its four previous matches.

"I felt it was important to see if we could come back from the loss against UTSA and end the regular season on a positive note," Texas State head coach Tory Plunkett said. "Not only did we win the match as a team, but our number-one doubles team (Andrea Giraldo and Lainy Chafitz) also played very solid and helped up win the doubles point."

Winning the doubles point has been a crucial element in Texas State's success this season. The Bobcats had won the single doubles point eight straight times before dropping two of their three doubles matches against UTSA.

"It isn't impossible to win a match with out it," Plunkett said. "But, it does take some of the pressure off of you heading into singles play because you only have to win three of the six singles matches instead of four."

Texas State won the doubles point Wednesday when its top two doubles teams won their matches. Giraldo and Chafitz defeated Mirna Cicak and Nina Ciric 8-2, and the Bobcats' Ashley Ellis teamed with Nyssa Peele to edge Erika Iriarte and Alexandra Dyckman 8-6. In the number-three doubles bout, Mackenzie Farmer and Kiki Kruse dropped an 8-6 decision against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Pernelle Soulie and Fabiana Mersan.

The Bobcats came back to win four of the six singles matches as well as Giraldo defeated Cicak 6-3, 6-3 in the top singles match. In the number-two bout, Ellis defeated Nadia Filmalter 6-4, 6-1. Kruse also won here number-five match against Iriarte after winning a tiebreaker in the second set, 7-5. She won the match 7-0, 7-6 (7-5). The number six battle also was decided by a tiebreaker in the second set as Farmer beat Dyckman 6-3, 7-6 after winning the tiebreaker 7-1.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi scored two team points with victories in the number three and number four singles matches as Ciric defeated Peele 6-0, 6-4 and Chafitz fell 6-4, 6-3 versus Megan Harless.

The victory was Texas State's fourth win in its last five matches and improved the Bobcats overall record to 10-6, including a 7-4 mark in SLC play.