Women's Tennis | 2/14/2015 4:43:00 PM

SAN MARCOS, Texas – The Texas State women's tennis team won its first match of the season when the Bobcats opened a four-match home stand with a 5-2 victory over  Incarnate Word at the Bobcat Tennis Complex on Saturday.
 
Playing without junior Katy Collins because of an illness, Texas State fell behind 1-0 when Incarnate Word captured the team doubles point.
 
Seniors Shannon Beckett and Monica Pieratt recorded their third straight victory in doubles play with an 8-2 victory over Antea Dedic and Matea Zemunik in the No. 2 match.
 
The Cardinals won the No. 1 match when Rachel Sadiq and Sarah Savedra edged Pippa Carr and Ana Laura Gutierrez by a score of 8-6. The victory clinched the team point after the match began with Maria Batchinsky and Malisa Vantanadilok being credited with a walk over victory in the No. 3 match due to Collins being unable to play.
                                                                                                           
Batchinsky was also credited with a victory with a walk over in the No. 6 singles match to give Incarnate Word an early 2-0 lead.
 
The Bobcats quickly answered when Beckett won her No. 5 singles match against Dedic in straight sets by the score of 6-1, 6-0. Then, Gutierrez also won the No. 2 match in straight sets with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over Zemunik to tie the team score at 2-2.
 
Carr gave Texas State a 3-2 lead in the match with a 6-3, 6-3 straight-set win in the No. 3 match against Savedra.
 
Eva Dench clinched the victory for the Bobcats when she also defeated Malisa Vatanadilok with a 6-4, 6-3 win in the No. 4 match.
 
The most compelling singles victory of the day came in the No. 1 match when Pieratt posted a three-set win over Sadiq to capture Texas State's fifth team point.
 
After dropping the first set by a score of 6-3, Pieratt bounced back to win the next two sets for the win. First, she won the second set by the same 6-3 score. Then, she broke serve to overcame a10-11 deficit and tie the score in a super tiebreaker that was deciding the third set. She won the final two points in the match by holding serve to capture the set by a score of 13-11.
 
The victory also was Pieratt's first win as a No. 1 singles player for Texas State and improves her record to 1-2 in dual matches this spring.
 
The victory also improves Texas State's team record to 1-2 this season. The Bobcats continue their home stand on Sunday morning against South Alabama. The start time for the Texas State-South Alabama match has moved up to 9:30 a.m. on Sunday due to threatening weather in the forecast for Sunday afternoon.