BEAUMONT, Texas – For the second time in 24 hours, the Lamar University women's tennis team (2-4/0-2 Southland) dropped a close battle in Southland Conference play. The Cardinals came up short in their bid to even up their conference record Sunday falling to Southeastern Louisiana, 5-2.
 
Three of the Lady Lions four singles points came by way of three-set victories. Big Red showed its poise having to rally in the second to force the third set.
 
"I'm proud of how our girls continued to fight today," said LU women's head coach David Wong. "But you have to take your hats off to Southeastern (Louisiana) because they wanted it just a little bit more today. Similar to yesterday's match, we were hurt by our doubles. We had four matches go to a third set this afternoon, but was only able to record one victory."
 
Despite being unable to pull out enough wins in three-set matches during singles play, Sunday's match came down to the first point of the day. The Cardinals dropped the doubles point, but forced SLU into a position where they had to rally for the win. The team of junior Katya Lapayeva and freshman Luciana Di Laura defeated the Lady Lions' Lucia Bustamante and Ceci Mercier, 6-1, at No. 2 doubles. The victory was short lived as Southeastern came back to take wins at the Nos. 1 and 3 spots for the point.
 
SLU added to its advantage with a straight-sets victory at No. 1 singles. The Cardinals bounced back with consecutive victories to tie the match at 2. Sophomore Andrea Ivanovic put LU on the board with her 6-2, 6-4 victory at the second spot. Big Red tied the match when junior Talissa Merchiers posted LU's lone three-set win of the afternoon, 5-7, 6-4, 6-0, over Bustamante at No. 4 singles.
 
Southeastern reclaimed the advantage with a three-set win at No. 3 singles needing only one more victory to lock up the match. The victory came from Mercier at No. 5 singles. After dropping the first set to LU's Stephanie Marchena, Mercier responding by winning the next two sets. SLU closed out the match by taking the final singles competition of the day – a three-set victory at No. 6.
 
The Cardinals return to action Saturday when they travel to Thibodaux, La. to take on Nicholls. The match against the Colonels is slated to begin at noon.
 
"Our responsibility now is to put these two matches behind us and get ready for our next match," said Wong. "We now have to get ready for a very tough Nicholls team on the road. Nicholls is a very good and this isn't going to be easy."
 
-LU CARDINALS-