Women's Tennis | 4/11/2015 12:25:00 AM
ARLINGTON, Texas – The St. Edward's Women's Tennis team had one of the most entertaining matches of the season against Arkansas-Fort Smith Friday afternoon. The Hilltoppers would trail early but survived several match points and eventually pull out an amazing 5-4 victory.
The doubles portion of the match saw the Lions grab the early lead over St. Edward's as they captured points at the No. 1 and No. 2 positions.
BROOKE HUGHES and Sasha Khadzyhan went point-for-point with Abby White and Brittaney McCasin, but ultimately fell at the No. 1 position by the narrow margin of 9-8.
IVANA ZECEVIC and
FRANCESCA CHAHER had an intense match of their own against the doubles pairing of Madison Carr and Taylor Price. Zecevic and Chaher would eventually drop their match 8-5. At the No. 3 doubles match, the team of
MARISSA WILLIAMS and Rafeala Haegele flexed their muscle and picked up a key point for the Hilltoppers with an 8-3 victory over Taylor Price and Abby Thompson.
St. Edward's would quickly need to regroup for the singles competition, but seizing the momentum would be hard to come by early. Khadzyhan would fall at the No. 1 position early by a scores of 6-1, 6-1.
FRANCESCA CHAHER would take care of Carr at the No. 3 singles position. After winning a close first set victory, Chaher would roll in the second set on her way to a 6-4, 6-1 victory.
SUMMER BIGGS would drop her singles match at the No. 5 position as she lost to Pearce in a 6-2, 6-3 contest.
Down 3-2, St. Edward's would pick up a huge victory at the No. 2 singles position thanks to Haegele's poise against McCasin. Her hard fought 7-5, 6-4 decision was significant not just for the match, but Haegele officially moved her way into a tie atop the St. Edward's record books with her 63
rd career singles victory.
In the one of the last two matches of play, Hilltopper freshman
MARISSA WILLIAMS would dig deep and battle Masa Podunavac in an epic three-set thriller at the No. 6 position. After capturing the first set and dropping the second, Williams would gain the upper hand in the final set to win 6-4, 2-6, 6-3.
Despite the fact the Lions and Hilltoppers were tied at 4-4, the No. 3 match did not look promising for St. Edward's late. After Zecevic narrowly defeated Price in the first set 7-6, she would drop the second set 0-6. Price would push Zecevic to the edge and held the upper hand 5-3. With the match on the line, Zecevic would survive four match points and rally to win the final four games to give St. Edward's the 5-4 team victory.
After the celebration ended, an elated Head Coach Kendall Brooks said that this match was important for a variety of reasons. "I can't even tell you how big this win was for our team. Not only for the obvious reasons that it was a conference match, but we needed a win to turn things around and give us some momentum in closing out the season. I was very happy about the effort from our entire team today and pulling out a victory like this will help us finish strong. We had great energy and overall it was a fun day of tennis for us today."
St. Edward's will only have a short time for rest as they'll take on the Newman Jets tomorrow morning. First serve is set for 9:00 a.m. from the Arlington Tennis Center.
