WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. -- The UNW Eagles Women's Tennis team fell in a razor thin 3-6 season-opening match with Coe College on Saturday afternoon. The Eagles were 0-3 in third set super tiebreakers and 0-2 in second set tie breakers.
UNW came out hot in doubles, winning first and third doubles convincingly with a score of 8-2 and 8-3 respectively. Second doubles started slow before clawing their way back, but ended up falling 5-8.
The Eagles entered singles play with a 2-1 lead.
Taylar Smith (Litchfield, Minn./Litchfield) added to that lead with a 6-1, 6-0 victory at 6 singles. The Hawks got a match back with Eliza Sundermann defeating
Belinda Weddle (Rhinelander, Wis./Rhinelander) at second singles 3-6, 2-6 to make the score 3-2 Eagles.
That's when things got interesting.
Sabrina Bush (White Bear Lake, Minn./White Bear Lake) came back after dropping the first set 3-6 to win the second set 6-0. She ended up falling just short in a close third set super tie breaker 9-11, making the match score 3-3.
Mafee Rinta's (Hudson, Wis./Hudson) match ended shortly after, falling in a close match with a second set tiebreaker were she was unable to force a third set super tiebreaker 3-6, 6-7 (6-8). The Hawks moved up to an advantage of 4-3 in the team score.
The only hope for the Eagles to emerge victorious came down to
Jessica Gross (Woodbury, Minn./New Life Academy) and
Ellie Dodge (Wahpeton, N.D./Wahpeton) at 3 and 4 singles. Ellie's match went to a third set super tie breaker where she played extremely long points, though came up just short 10-12 in the super tiebreaker, earning Coe the team victory and pulling forward to 5-3 match lead. Match score for Ellie was 6-2, 6-7 (3-7), 10-12.
In Jessica's match, she won the first set 6-4 before stumbling in the second set 1-6, and ultimately fell in a hard fought third set super tiebreaker 7-10
In exhibition play,
Angel Beaufeaux (Aitkin, Minn./Aitkin) won in a dominant 8-0 performance.
The Eagles next compete on Friday, February 26, as they host the University of Dubuque at Life Time Fitness in White Bear Lake.
