BEAUMONT, Texas – After Mother Nature forced the start of Lamar University women's tennis season back a day, the Cardinals were finally able to step on the court Sunday afternoon for their match against the Rice Owls. Big Red put up a strong fight but fell short against the 2019 NCAA tournament participant in front of their home fans. The Owls defeated LU, 7-0, Sunday at the George R. Brown Tennis Center.
 
"We knew this was going to be a very tough match," said LU head coach David Wong. "Rice always has a very good team, and they return a lot of talent from last season. I saw some very good things from our young ladies today that we can build on moving forward. We made some mistakes and against a team like Rice they will make you pay. Rice has a long tradition of not letting folks get out of Houston with a win. We will get stronger from this match."
 
The Owls won the doubles point led by their nationally ranked duo of Priya Niezgoda and Anastasia Smirnova at the No. 1 position. Rice carried that momentum over into singles play where the Owls' Anna Bowtell picked up a straight-sets victory over LU's Ana Jolic to push their lead to 2-0.
 
Despite being down two early, the Cardinals were trying to battle back on court No. 4 where junior Natalia Garcia Molina was locked in a tough first set against Niezgoda. The set was forced to a tiebreaker but Niezgoda picked up the set with a 7-1 decision for the final game of the set.
 
The Owls would eventually pick up the victory on court No. 4 to record the shutout.
 
The Cardinals will be back in action Saturday, Jan. 25th when they travel to Denton, Texas to take on North Texas. The match against the Mean Green will begin at noon.