Southeastern Louisiana 5, Lamar 2
Southeastern Louisiana 6, LSU-Alexandria 0
New Orleans 7, Sam Houston State 0
Central Arkansas at Stephen F. Austin, Postponed (Weather)
Nicholls at McNeese State, Postponed (Weather)
Southeastern Louisiana 5, Lamar 2
Southeastern Louisiana 6, LSU-Alexandria 0
HAMMOND, La. – The Southeastern Louisiana tennis team earned a pair of victories, including a key Southland Conference win, on Sunday at the Southeastern Tennis Complex.
The Lions (5-1, 2-0 Southland) opened the day with a 5-2 Southland Conference victory over Lamar (3-6, 0-2 Southland). Later in the day, SLU was too much for LSU-Alexandria (3-2) in a 6-0 triumph.
Southeastern showed some intestinal fortitude in the day’s opening win. After dropping the doubles point, the Lions rallied to win five of six singles matches to earn the victory and remain unbeaten in league play. SLU head coach Jason Hayes was proud of his team’s efforts in bouncing back from its woes in doubles play.
Lamar took the early lead by claiming the doubles point with wins on the No. 1 and No. 2 courts. SLU came out with a different energy in singles play, as junior Renee Villarreal (6-0) evened the match with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Katya Lapayeva on the No. 1 court. Villarreal is now 45-4 in singles play in her Lion career.
At No. 2, Anna Bryukhova (2-3) gave Southeastern the lead for good, defeating LU’s Anna Spengler, 6-3, 6-1. Freshman Lucia Bustamante (6-0) remained undefeated this spring and put Southeastern on the brink of victory with a 6-4, 6-3 win on the No. 3 court.
Lamar wouldn’t go away quietly, however, winning on the No. 4 court in straight sets. The Lions would have to rely on a pair of freshmen – Dany Raygadas (No. 5) and Madina Vorotnikova (No. 6) – to win their third sets. Both Lions said they were aware of how crucial their matches were.
Raygadas (4-1) was able to bounce back from a tough first set to gut out a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Hanna Elfving to give Southeastern the clinching fourth point. In her first season under Hayes, she has bought in to the Lion head coach’s insistence to show positive emotion.
Vorotnikova (4-1) put an exclamation point on the victory, outlasting Stephanie Marchena, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. The Lion freshman admitted that she was sneaking peeks at Raygadas’ match on the opposite end of the courts.
In the nightcap, SLU made short work of visiting LSU-A. The teams decided to start with singles play and the Lions earned the victory by sweeping all six singles matches. Villarreal, Bustamante, Raygadas, Vorotnikova, sophomore Margaux Kaltenbacher (2-3) and freshman Natalie Duran (1-0) all won to provide SLU with a 6-0 victory.
SLU will be back in action on Saturday, traveling to Central Arkansas for a 12 p.m. Southland match with the Bears.
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New Orleans 7, Sam Houston State 0
NEW ORLEANS, La. – The New Orleans Privateers women's tennis team (8-5, 2-2) capped off a conference weekend in style with a 7-0 sweep over the Sam Houston State Bearkats (0-8, 0-2) on Sunday at the University Tennis Center.
The doubles point had little doubt as the Privateers controlled the match at the 1 and 2 positions to secure the first point of the afternoon. Soledad Calderon Arroyo and Marta Sans won 8-2 and Anna Segarra Rius and Anja Luethi finished up with the same score line to cap off the point. Calderon and Sans are now 6-1 in doubles on the year.
Hafsa Laraibi started singles with a bang for the Privateers, finishing off her opponent 6-0, 6-0. For Laraibi, she only dropped two games in singles on the weekend. Calderon followed by holding serve to win her match in straight sets. Yasmine Rashad earned the match clinching point with a 6-4, 6-4 victory.
The rest of the singles matches were played out until the end with all of them going to three sets. Segarra finished off the clean sweep for New Orleans. After jumping ahead 5-0 in the final set, Segarra lost the next two games, but recovered to take the final set 6-2 and run her singles winning streak to five.
Next up for the Privateers is another conference match against Central Arkansas on Sunday, Mar. 15. The match is set for a 12 p.m. start.
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