San Marcos, Texas - The Texas State women's tennis team earned some respect but didn't have anything to show for their efforts on the scoreboard as the Bobcats suffered a hard-fought 7-0 against Lamar in a Southland Conference match Saturday at the Bobcat Tennis Center.
“It is three o'clock (p.m.) right now and our first singles match didn't end until it was 1:45 (p.m.) after beginning the match at 10 this morning,” said Texas State head coach Tory Plunkett. “That alone will tell you what a fight it was. When you look at our second and third-set scores everyone did much better after the first set. Everyone put up a super fight.”
The hard fight began in doubles play when the two teams each won a match and the third match was settled by a tiebreaker for the team point.
In the number-one doubles match, Lamar's nationally-ranked doubles team of Mariaryeni Gutierrez and Kaltrina Harbuzi beat Texas State's Jessica Kahts and Melissa Hadad 8-4.
The Bobcats won the number-two doubles match when Texas State's tandem of Gabriela Rojas and Bérénice Van Den Bergh beat Lamar's Natalia Mayagoitia and Alicia Porte 8-4 in their match.
The Cardinals captured the doubles point when Helene Czudek and Diana Mendez broke an 8-8 tie against Texas State's Jessica Laing and Mariana Perez with an 8-6 advantage in the tiebreaker.
“The experience and pressure that Jessica Laing and Gabriela Rojas had in doubles where their match was decided by a tiebreaker for the doubles point was huge because you don't get to face that very often,” said Plunkett. “I thought (Laing) showed that she learned from the experience in her doubles match because she came back in the second set to force a tiebreaker.”
In her number-four match against Mayagoitia, Laing lost the first set by a score of 6-0 and trailed 6-4 in the second set before winning the next two points to force a tiebreaker. However, Mayagoitia rebounded to win the tiebreaker 7-4, and that gave her the victory in the match.
In the Number five match, Perez also won the first set of her match 6-4 before Pennesi came back to win the second set 6-3. In the third set, both players battled back and forth as they fought to a 6-6 tie. Pennesi won the tiebreaker 7-5.
“We were down in each of the tiebreakers and came back,” said Plunkett. “We just didn't come back all the way.”
The Bobcats also fought valiantly in the other singles matches. Kahts and Rojas came back in the second sets of their matches before falling 7-5 in each match.
In the top singles match, Kahts suffered a 6-2, 7-5 loss against Gutierrez, who improved her record to 10-0 this season. In the number three-match Rojas had a 6-3, 7-5 setback against Porte.
Hadad also suffered a 6-3, 6-2 loss in her number-two match against Harbuzi.
In the number six match, Van Den Bergh won the first set 6-4 against Mendez, but lost the final two sets 6-2, 6-1.
“We have a young team, but they are a good group of players,” said Plunkett. “We knew that this could happen because Lamar has a lot of experienced players who have been successful for a long time. We faced a lot of pressure situations, and I thought we did well.
“Lamar has played a lot of matches this year while the weather has killed us, and we haven't been able to play as many matches. We were confident and will get much stronger. That is the good thing about our young team. We are going to keep getting better and better as the season goes along.”
Texas State will return to the Bobcat Tennis Complex on Sunday morning when the Bobcats play host to McNeese State in a Southland Conference match at 10:00 a.m. Texas State enters the match with a 4-3 overall record and the Bobcats are 1-1 against Southland Conference teams. The Cowgirls enter the match with a 3-5 overall record and are 0-3 in SLC play after suffering a 6-1 loss at UT Arlington on Saturday.
