Jan. 21, 2018 TULSA, Okla. -- The Louisiana Tech women's tennis team got to play a lot of matches and got mixed results at the three-day Hurricane Invite this weekend on the campus of University of Tulsa at the Michael D. Case Tennis Center.
The first day produced the most victories, picking up six combined wins against Oral Roberts. Day two came against the toughest competition in the host school Tulsa, battling a lot of games to deuces but falling in all matches.
And on day three, LA Tech got off to quality starts in singles by winning the first set in four matches. However, the Lady Techsters were not able to close things out and only came away with one victory.
"It was a higher level of competition throughout the three days and I thought we competed well," head coach Amanda Stone said. "We had a lot of games that the big points were the difference. We have to get better at winning big points and learning how to close matches when we are up. We will get back to practice and try to correct some things we learned as we move forward into the dual season."
On Friday, the lone doubles win of the weekend came from Sonia Chen and Karla De La Luz Montalvo who teamed up to down Ceijenia Cornelius and Andrea Vasiljevic (ORU) 7-5 in Flight Two.
Chen and Montalvo also grabbed singles wins in Flight Two and Four, respectively. Chen cruised to a 6-2, 6-2 win over Cornelius and Montalvo toppled Vasiljevic 6-3, 6-3.
Nadja Manjon, playing at the top of the lineup in Flight One, gutted out a 7-6, 7-6 victory versus Jovana Antonijevic. The Lady Techsters also picked up two wins over the Golden Eagles in Flight Five and Six as Andrea Perez-Lopez downed Brenda Mercado 6-2, 6-4 and Paulina Cota outlasted Valentina Gisbert 6-0, 3-6, 1-0 (4).
Day two was a matchup with the Golden Hurricane who finished 2017 ranked 44th in the country, falling in all three doubles matches and in straight sets in the six singles matches. Montalvo put up the biggest fight at Flight Four before dropping a 6-4, 6-2 decision to Vera Ploner.
The third and final day of the invitational on Sunday came against the Cowgirls. Chen, Luz and Claudia Oravcova (seeing her first action of the spring) each cruised in winning the opening set.
However, each Lady Techster was not able to hold off their opponent while falling in three sets. Cota was the bright spot of the day though, overpowering Myiah Scott 6-1, 6-1 in Flight Six for her second victory of the weekend.
LA Tech will now play in its first dual match of the spring slate on Saturday, Jan. 27 when they face at Conference USA foe North Texas. First serve is set for 12 p.m.
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