MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Louisiana Tech was on the cusp of another comeback league victory, but the Lady Techsters ended up falling to Middle Tennessee by a final score of 5-2 on Saturday afternoon at the Adams Tennis Center.
A day defeating WKU after trailing 3-2, LA Tech (5-5, 1-1 C-USA) found itself in the same situation against Middle Tennessee (6-6, 1-1 C-USA). The last two matches went into a third set, but the Blue Raiders pulled both out.
"I was proud of our effort today," said head coach
Amanda Stone. "Even though we did not get the result, we showed up and competed as a team. We had a couple disappointing losses last week that really made us focus on being unafraid to play to win in the big moments. We have definitely corrected that in the past two matches.
"Today, we gave ourselves the opportunity to beat a strong C-USA team. We had a lot of fight on every line in every set. We played hard and gutsy. While we came up short, we can walk away knowing we were points away from a different result."
The Lady Techsters had to go the hard route to try to get to four after dropping the doubles point.
Alexia Romero and
Lara Unkovich improved to 4-0 at the No. 3 spot with 6-1 victory. The Blue Raiders evened things up in doubles with a win on court one, bringing all of the attention to court two. After being down 0-3,
Anastasiia Salenko and
Claudia Oravcova won five of the next six games to go up 5-4 in the match, but MTSU won the last three games to take it, 7-5.
The Blue Raiders collected two straight-set wins in singles on courts two and five to go up 3-0 in the match, but the Lady Techsters fought back.
It started with Oravcova, who provided the clinching point on Friday, besting Noelle Mauro 6-3, 6-2 at the No. 6 spot. Not long after,
Ilana Tetruashvili recorded a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Zani Barnard at the No. 3 position. The junior improved to 5-1 on court three this spring.
"Claudia and Ilana have been great leaders on the court for us this week," said Stone. "Both are really setting a great example on how to compete for our young players."
To get to four, LA Tech needed wins from
Leonie Schuknecht at No. 1 and Romero at No. 4. Schuknecht battled back to force a third set after claiming the second set in a tiebreaker. Meanwhile, the opposite scenario played out for Romero who claimed the first set, but dropped the second set in a tiebreaker. Both ended up falling in the three-set marathons.
The Lady Techsters will have one day off and then travel to Murray, Kentucky to take on Murray State at the Bennie Purcell Tennis Courts. First serve is set for 12 p.m.
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