Women's Tennis | 1/23/2016 8:18:00 PM
SAN MARCOS, TEXAS - Despite a lopsided 6-1 score, the Texas State women's tennis team walked away from their match against McNeese State having gained some much needed experience on Saturday afternoon.
The Bobcats went into their first match of the season with a lineup featuring three freshmen and having a roster that includes five freshmen players overall. Texas State faced a team that boasted a returning conference Player of the Year and three all-conference players in its lineup. The Cowgirls also entered Saturday having played two matches this season.
"We have had five days of practice and you could clearly see that they were a bit sharper than we were," said Texas State head coach
Tory Plunkett.
McNeese State opened the day capturing the team doubles point when they won two of the three matches. First, Giovanna Fioretti and Julia Kral won a 6-3 decision over
Katy Collins and
Eva Dench. Then, Hannah Brett and Sarah Jurakova also won a 6-3 decision over
Pippa Carr and
Joy Chia Ming Ming.
After the team doubles point was decided, the No. 1 doubles match was halted with Texas State's
Yadira Rubio and
Ana Perez leading 5-3 and ahead 30-15 in a match against Kladia Grawlik and Anastasija Trubich.
In singles play, the Cowgirls opened with Jurakova winning a 6-2, 6-0 decision over Perez in the No. 5 match before Dench suffered a 6-3, 6-0 loss against Kral in the No. 2 match.
In the No. 1 singles match, Rubio dropped the first set 6-2 against Grawlik, the returning Southland Conference Player of the Year. She came back in the second set and was tied 5-5 before dropping the final two points.
"She could have easily given up after that first set," said Plunkett. "But she showed some grit before she ended up falling in the second set, 7-5."
Katy Collins appeared to be in control of her singles match after winning the first set by a score of 6-2. But, Brett bounced back to win the second set, 6-1, before closing out the match by winning the third set 6-0.
Another freshman who put up a tough battle was
Ammaarah Tim, who joined the Bobcats this spring. She fell 6-4 in the first set against Vivian Borbaly, and battled throughout the second set before falling 7-5 to drop the match.
"That is what we are trying to do early in the season," said Plunkett. "We are trying to get some experience for our freshman and hoping that they learn from it and not walk away with their heads down."
Texas State's lone point came in the No. 3 match where
Pippa Carr defeated Fioretti, who was named the SLC Player of the Week last Monday, in three sets. Fioretti won the first set by a score of 6-4, before Carr came back to win the second set by a score of 6-1 and won the third set when she captured the super tiebreaker, 10-7.
"That was a big win for Pippa because it was her first victory of the season," said Plunkett. "She hadn't won a match in the fall, but she did very well and won her match today."
Plunkett also felt that the win was important for the overall team as well.
"We all can hang our hats on the fact that we won that last singles match," she said. "We lost the overall match in the long run, but we can walk away with the experience of playing in a match and have some things to work on in practice. We looked good in practice after five days, but you get into competition and see it's a totally different ball game."
The Bobcats will play their next two matches against South Alabama and Nicholls State in Mobile, Ala. on Feb. 5-6. They also will play at Auburn on Feb. 7.
