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Women’s tennis wins 2, loses 1 over weekend

The Utah State women’s tennis team finished a 2-1 weekend road trip with a 6-1 loss at Wisconsin Sunday.

The Aggies started out with a 6-1 win against Green Bay on Thursday before beating the Akron Zips 4-3 on Saturday. Utah State is now 6-3 on the season with the first conference match still over a month away.

Against Green Bay only one junior played, and the rest of the lineup consisted of freshmen and sophomores.

USU won all three doubles matches to take the doubles point Thursday.

In singles, sophomore Nini Guensler defeated Green Bay’s Stephanie Londre in a tiebreaker. Aggie sophomore Lexi Turley beat Lauren Miketinac, and freshman Meghan Lyall defeated Samm Pedersen.

The young lineup continued to win for Utah State. Freshman Sabrina Demerath beat Maria Neff, and junior Amber Stuhlmann defeated Rachael Menos. Green Bay ended USU’s hopes of a sweep when Olivia Headford defeated Utah State’s Maggie O’Meara.

Against Akron, USU won the doubles point by winning all three doubles matches. Sean McInerney, the second-year head coach of Utah State, said he was pleased with how his doubles teams played but felt that singles play was inconsistent.

In singles, senior McKenzie Davis beat Karolina Maksimova, Guensler defeated Madison Cohen, junior Kallie Sperry defeated Martina Zerbola. Turley lost to Olga Shkundina, Lyall lost to Sohpia Geier, and Demerath lost to Ariadna Blinova.

“I thought we did a really good job competing today and finding a way to win,” McInerney said. “We have a long way to go, but we did a good job today staying on task and giving ourselves a chance to win.”

The team finished the weekend with a 6-1 loss to Wisconsin Sunday morning. Sperry and Turley lost their doubles match, as did Davis and O’Meara. The doubles point already having been lost, Guensler and Lyall left their match unfinished.

In singles, Demerath defeated Kelsey Grambeau, but Davis lost to Lauren Chypyha, Guensler lost to Maria Avgerinos, Sperry lost to Sydney Rider, O’Meara lost to Lauren Burich, and Lyall was defeated by Ekaterina Stepanova.

“Today we got beat by a team that played very well,” McInerney said. “We played really hard and smart, but we need to be able to do it for extended periods of time, not just moments. These matches teach us what it takes to compete at the next level, and we will be better moving forward because of them.”

The Aggies will be on the road in Bozeman, Montana this weekend for a doubleheader against Lewis-Clark State and Montana State Billings on Friday.

— olivia.webb@aggiemail.usu.edu

Twitter: @oliviawebb77