San Marcos, Texas – To describe Saturday's tennis match between former conference rivals Texas State and Northwestern State as hard fought, doesn't seem adequate as the Bobcats held on for a 4-3 victory at the Bobcat Tennis Complex on Saturday.
 
In a match that lasted 4½ hours, Texas State opened the day capturing a very pivotal team point after winning two of the three doubles matches for the second straight day. The Bobcats began doubles play with Evan Dench and Katy Collins winning 8-1 over Aliona Ladutska and Emily Kerr on the No. 3 court.
 
Northwestern State evened the score at 1-1 when Natalya Krutova and Tatiana Larina edged Pippa Carr and Ana Laura Gutierrez on the No. 1 court.
 
However, Shannon Beckett and Monica Pieratt answered a tough challenge when they came from behind to win a 8-6 decision over Polina Ivanova and Barbora Kollarova in the No. 2 match.
 
In that match, Beckett and Pieratt trailed 5-4 before retaking the lead by winning three straight points. After Ivanova and Kollarova pulled to within 7-6, the last game contained some more dramatic play as Beckett and Pieratt overcame facing triple match point after trailing 15-40 in the final game by winning the next three points to force the first of five deuce points. The match ended when Beckett won the set with a service ace.
 
In singles play, Katy Collins and Eva Dench gave the Bobcats, an early 3-0 lead in the match as they won straight set decisions on the No. 4 and No. 6 courts. First, Collins defeated Kerr by a score of 6-1, 6-1 to win the No. 6 match. Then, Dench beat Kollarova by a score of 6-4, 6-2 on the No. 4 court.
 
Sandwiched between those two victories was Northwestern State logging its first team point of the day when Larina won a 6-4, 6-0 outcome over Pieratt on the No. 1 court.
                                                                                                                                                              
With Texas State holding a 3-1 team lead, the Lady Demons fought back to tie the score at 3-3 with wins in the No. 2 and No. 3 courts.
 
First, Krutova prevailed her No. 2 match against Gutierrez after winning a tiebreaker in the first set (7-5) for a 7-6, 6-2 victory.
 
Then, Texas State's Pippa Carr dropped a three-set decision against Ladutska in which the final two sets were decided by 7-5 scores after Carr opened the match winning the first set by a score of 6-1.
 
In the final match of the day, Beckett took advantage of an early lead in the third set and outlasted Ivanova on the No. 5 court. That match began with both players essentially holding serves until Beckett was able to break through and win the first set by a score of 7-5.
 
After Ivanova came back to win the second set by a score of 6-3, Beckett jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the third set. Ivanova answered and won three of the next four games to pull to within 4-3. However, that was as close as she would get as Beckett had a service break and held serve for the final two points to win the set at 6-3.
 
The victory closes out a four-match home stand for the Bobcats, who won three of the four home matches to even their overall season record to 3-3. Meanwhile, Northwestern State, which is the defending Southland Conference champion, fell to 1-5 this year.