Final Stats

LA Tech vs. WKU box

LA Tech Season Stats

NORFOLK, Virginia ÃÆ'¢Ã¢'¬" The 2018 spring season came to an end for the Louisiana Tech women's tennis team as they fell 4-0 to WKU on Thursday morning in the first round of the Conference USA Tournament at the Folkes-Stevens Tennis Center on the campus of Old Dominion University.

It was a lengthy battle for the doubles point between No. 10 seed LA Tech (9-12) and No. 7 seed WKU (9-7), but the Hilltoppers managed to pull out close wins on courts one and two. WKU was then able to clinch victories on courts one, three and five in singles to advance to the quarterfinals.

The first win of the morning came via the dynamic doubles tandem of Sonia Chen and Claudia Oravcova. The duo registered their team-best 11th victory of the spring with a convincing 6-2 win over Elpida Malamou and Violetta Shatalova at the No. 3 position.

At the No. 2 spot, Angela Lorenzo and Nadja Manjon found themselves quickly down 5-1 to Natalia De Ugarte and Cidy Oest. However, the Lady Techsters reeled off three straight games to pull to within one game before the Hilltoppers clinched it 6-4.

This brought the doubles point down to court one between Karla De La Luz Montalvo/Andrea Perez-Lopez and Moka Ito/Monica Malinen. Down 5-4, LA Tech was able to hang in to make it 5-all, but the Hilltoppers won the final two games to take it 7-5.

All six singles matches were close through the opening five games with there being a lot of 3-2 scores after the first three change overs.

WKU started to pull away though, taking the first set on courts one, three, four and six while Chen and Perez-Lopez captured the first set of their matches on courts two and six, respectively. Both of those matches went unfinished as the Hilltoppers got their three points to advance to face No. 2 seed Rice.

The star of the 2018 spring season was Chen. The junior from Taiwan posted a team-best 13-4 singles record, including a program record-tying 12 straight victories. She also went 12-4 in dubs with 11 of those coming with Oravcova.

For all the latest in LA Tech Tennis, follow them on Twitter (@LATechTEN), Instagram (@LATechTennis) and Facebook (LATechTennis) or visit the official website at LATechSports.com.