April 5, 2008
Results
BEAUMONT - In a match up between two of the Southland Conference's two best tennis teams, the Southeastern Louisiana Lady Lions handed the Lamar University women a 5-2 loss on Saturday afternoon at the Cardinal Courts.
The loss, which is just the second of the year for the Lady Cardinals, drops LU to 17-2 on the year and 6-1 in Southland Conference play. It also snaps their 15-match winning streak. With the win Southeastern improves to 13-2 overall and 6-0 in SLC play.
Despite the 5-2 score, the match was tightly contest from the beginning, where the doubles point came down to a tie breaker at No. 2. Lamar claimed a victory at No. 1 doubles as Andrea Martinez and Mariaryeni Gutierrez rolled past Nina Knavs and Breda Kovac 8-3 while the Lady Lion pair of Emilija Arnaudovska and Iva Velkovska handed Maria Gutierrez and Manijee Ashrafi an 8-4 loss at No. 2.
With the point up for grabs Lamar's Kaltrina Harbuzi and Salina Aranda battled with SELA's Bonnie Phillips and Jana Simurkova. Both teams had opportunities to close out the match, but neither could hold serve when they had their chance to close it out. The Lady Lions finally claimed the point during the tie breaker as they held on for a 9-8 win.
In singles play the Lady Cardinals picked up a pair of straight set wins from Mariaryeni Gutierrez and Harbuzi at No. 2 and No. 3, but came up short in a pair of three set decisions at No. 1 and No. 6 and fell in straight sets at four and five.
Mariaryeni Gutierrez notched the first point for LU as she cruised past Velkovska 6-2, 6-3. Harbuzi followed suit for the Lady Cardinals with an identical 6-2, 6-3 win over Kovac at No. 3.
In the match at No. 5 Phillips handed Ashrafi a 6-3, 7-5 loss and Southeastern's Knavs battled from behind to post a 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over LU's Anahita Jagtiani at No. 6 to give the Lady Lions a 3-2 lead with two matches to play.
Southeastern clinched the match with their fourth point when Simurkova handed Maria Gutierrez a 7-6, 6-3 loss at No. 5.
With the match already decided in SELA's favor, the battle at No. 1 singles began to heat up. Southeastern's Arnaudovska won the first set over Martinez, but the Lady Cardinal senior bounced back to win the second set 6-4. Martinez appeared to be in position to roll past the Lady Lion in the third set as she led 4-1 before leg cramps began to hinder her play. Arnaudovska took advantage of her opponent's misfortune and raced ahead in the match, but could not close out Martinez.
Martinez, despite obvious pain and limited mobility, refused to let Arnaudovska win without a fight and forced the match into a tiebreaker with gritty play. She looked as if she would win the match as she jumped out to an early lead in the tie breaker, but Arnaudovska finally closed out the match by battling back for a 7-5win in the tie breaker to claim the match 6-2, 4-6, 7-6.
The Lady Cards are back in action on Sunday at 11 a.m. when they take on Nicholls State at the Cardinal Courts.
