Georgia Southern women’s tennis blanks Savannah State 7-0 en route to their third straight victory

  • With this win the Eagles now sit on an overall record of 10-8 while looking at a three game win streak.

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Ryan Kostensky

The Eagles shutout Tigers on Wednesday for their 10th win of the season and third in a row. After consecutive dominating victories against Arkansas State and Coastal Georgia, where GS won 7-0 both times, the women’s tennis team took care of the Tigers for yet another 7-0 result.

GS started the domination early in the doubles competition, where all three pairs went on to win their respective matches. The duo of junior Paula Boixader and freshman Hannah Daniel led the way with a 6-1 victory, while the other two pairs won 6-2. Senior Paige Christian appeared in a doubles match that resulted in a DNF after the Eagles won the point.

On what was a blustery day in Statesboro, Christian talked about the weather conditions and how they played into the result.

“The wind made it difficult but we’ve played in this kind of weather before so we know how to handle it,” Christian said. “We know how to perform in these kind of conditions and I think we showed that today. It was evident in our wins in all of our doubles, and it kind of gave us confidence going into our singles.”

With conference play on the horizon, the Eagles are playing their best tennis right now, Daniel talked about the importance of what the team is doing.

“I think it’s important that we keep up the good work we’re doing right now,” Daniel said. “We’re enjoying being on the court, we’re having like a fighting mentality, we’re wanting to hit the ball which I think is super important going into conference play because we want to beat them.”

On the singles side of the match, the Eagles won without dropping a single set, highlighted by freshman Luisa Hrda who went 6-0, 6-0, and sophomore Charlotte Van Diemen who went 6-1, 6-0. As a group, each singles player held their Tiger counterpart to no more than three games won, including junior Arianne De Winter and Boixader, who would each go 6-3, 6-0 in the victory.

Now sitting at 10-8 on the season with the aforementioned three-game winning streak, Sean McCaffrey, GS women’s tennis head coach talked about his team’s efforts in the win and how they could improve in the future.

“I think when you play a midweek match against a non-conference team it’s really difficult sometimes to get that excitement and that energy going that you need in competition in order to win or to even perform at a high level,” McCaffrey said. “Because that’s all I’ve been trying to talk about lately is good performance, so it’s difficult to command that and to pull on that.”

As the season begins to wind down, the Eagles set their sights on finishing strong in the Sun Belt, looking to improve their 2-2 record with just seven games remaining. GS returns to action against UT-Arlington on Saturday at the Wallis Tennis Center with their three-game winning streak on the line, with the action getting started at 10 a.m.

Ryan Kostensky, The George-Anne Sports Reporter, gasports@georgiasouthern.edu