Eagles notch a win against wildcats

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Macy Holloway

The women’s tennis team traveled to Florida this past weekend and were able to truly appreciate the saying “you win some, you lose some.”

The Eagles lost to the University of Central Florida on Friday but defeated Bethune-Cookman University on Saturday, improving their record to 4-2.

While Georgia Southern University put up a good fight on Friday, in the singles competition, only GSU junior Jordana Klein was able to find success over her UCF opponent, senior Courtney Griffith. The other five matches were all lost and the points given to UCF; however, GSU sophomore Mary Phillips Smith did have an outstanding match against UCF freshman Annika Hepp, winning the first set 5-7, losing the second 7-6 (7-4), and then ultimately losing the last 1-0 (10-7).

The Eagles pulled out two solid wins in the doubles competition with freshman Giulia Riepe and senior Paola Garrido defeating their UCF opponents, sophomore Sofia Baptista and senior Cortney Cesarini. To win the doubles point for GSU, sophomore Stephanie Woods and Klein also teamed up to overcome UCF sophomore Clare Mendell and Hepp.

On Saturday the Eagles were able to round out their overall record to 4-2 after defeating the Wildcats. It was an incredibly tight match as GSU and B-CU each won three of the six singles matches forcing the deciding point to depend on the outcome of the doubles competition. Luckily for GSU, Woods and Riepe paired up to defeat B-CU sophomore Ancia Ifill along with sophomore Elizabeth Nyenwe 8-3. Smith and Klein also overcame their B-CU opponents junior Chinatsu Kajiwara and junior Gaby Chinchilla 8-4 allowing GSU to notch their win against B-CU.

“Well, I thought we did pretty really well considering we couldn’t practice all week because of the weather. Of course we were a little disappointed with our performances on Friday but I’m glad we were able to fight back on Saturday. We only have one more non-conference match before we begin our season in (Southern Conference) SoCon so every win we can notch definitely helps boost our confidence,” Klein said.

The Eagles’ last match before they enter into the SoCon will be on Feb. 22 against Kennesaw State University.