By Brandon Tripp, Sports Writer
The women’s tennis team continued to prepare for a national title run, playing two matches over the weekend, while the men’s team had the week off. The Wildcats played another Division I opponent in the University of North Texas, and also competed against conference and regional rival Northeastern State.
“We needed a good weekend to just kind of make sure we are still fresh and ready for conference,” head coach Hutton Jones said.
The women began the weekend against their eighth Division I opponent of the season when they faced the Mean Green of North Texas. The Wildcats began the match dropping the doubles point after losing two of the three in close matches. Sara Drummond and Dina Pavlin dropped the No. 1 doubles match 8-3, before ACU came back to win the No. 2 doubles as Cassie Carver and Irene Squillaci took down Catalina Cruz and Narine Kazarova 8-5. In the third and final doubles match, Jaclyn Walker and Lauren White dropped a close 8-4 decision to Irina Paraschiv and Rachel Wilhelm.
Despite falling behind 1-0 after the doubles matches, the Wildcats fought hard, winning half of the matches in singles play. ACU won the No. 2, 3 and 4 matches, two of them going to three sets. In the No. 2 match, Sara Drummond played Madura Ranganathan, taking the first set 7-5 before dropping the second set 2-6, but Drummond came back in the final set to win 7-5 and take the match. In the No. 3 singles match, Jaclyn Walker defeated Paula Dinuta 6-4, 6-7, 6-2, and Dina Pavlin won the No. 4 singles match in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1. Despite the split, the Wildcats came up short in the end, losing the match 4-3.
ACU looked to even up the weekend with a match against the No. 14 team in Division II, Northeastern State. The Wildcats dominated the Greyhounds from the beginning, sweeping all three doubles matches to take an early 3-0 lead. The singles matches were well contested in the top three slots, with two of them going to three sets. Squillaci, Drummond, Walker, Carver and Natalie Friend all won singles matches as ACU took five of six matches.
After the weekend’s matches, the women move to 21-4 on the season and 6-0 in conference play. The men will return to action Saturday against conference opponents East Central and Southeastern Oklahoma. East Central is currently second in the conference with a record of 10-17 overall and 2-1 in conference. Southeastern Oklahoma sits last in conference with an 0-2 conference record and 7-7 overall record.
“It was a great weekend for the girls, and now we hope that we have a similar weekend for the men this weekend,” Jones said.
