Women’s tennis swept in Boise
After a three-match road trip, the Utah State University women’s tennis team will finish out the regular season at home Wednesday.
The Aggies will be hosting Idaho State University at 2 p.m. at the Sports Academy and Racquet Club.
This will be the second meeting of the season after the Aggies defeated the Bengals 4-3 Jan. 23 in Pocatello, Idaho.
It will be only the fourth home match for the Aggies this season, but the players are looking forward to getting one last chance to play in Logan, Aggie Caroline Pollock said.
“I think we’re going to get a good crowd out,” she said. “It should be a fun one to end our season with.”
Aggie Head Coach Chris Wright said, “I obviously want to win, but win or lose I just want to see us compete and see the belief in ourselves.”
Wednesday’s match will be the Aggies’ fourth match in six days, having just returned from three days of play in Boise, Idaho.
Utah State opened its road trip Friday with a 7-0 loss to No. 38 Boise State University. It was the Broncos’ 24th straight home victory.
Wright said he didn’t tell his team BSU’s ranking before the match and he doesn’t know if the team knew.
“We didn’t look intimidated when we went out there, but [BSU] is ranked No. 38 in the country and they’re ranked that way for a reason,” he said.
In singles, Renate Stoop defeated Aggie Sarah Lowe 6-2, 6-1, Bronco Helen Lawson topped Jocee Bergeson, 6-3, 6-0, and BSU’s Jemima Hayward won over Caroline Pollock, 7-6, 6-2.
The other three singles matches saw Bronco Erin Polowski defeat Shelly Ferguson, 7-5, 6-2, Ann Curtolo won over Utah State’s Carolyn Larsen, 6-2, 6-3, and Alissa Ayling was victorious over Aggie Haley Hawkins, 7-5, 6-1.
Wright said the Aggies led early in singles but Boise State was able to pull away.
“We had some good chances, we just didn’t sustain it,” he said. “I don’t know if as the match went on if we lost some confidence in ourselves, but we were competing really hard.”
The Broncos also swept doubles as Hayward and Polowski defeated Lowe and Pollock, 8-6, Jemima Attard and Lawson won over Larsen and Hawkins, 8-2, and Ayling and Curtolo topped Bergeson and Amy Thatcher, 8-1.
Saturday the Aggies didn’t fare much better, picking up only one singles match in a 6-1 loss to the University of Idaho.
The only Aggie victory came at No. 3 singles where Pollock defeated Zeljka Vidic, 6-2, 7-5.
“[Pollock] put together a very solid match,” Wright said. “She just went out there and dictated tempo.”
In other singles play, Pooja Deshmukh defeated Lowe, 6-2, 6-2, Vida Senci was victorious, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1, over Bergeson, Barbora Kudilkova won over Ferguson, 6-0, 6-4, Sunel Nieuwoudt came out on top of Larsen, 6-0, 6-1, and Monica Martin defeated Haley Hawkins, 6-3, 6-3.
The Vandals swept doubles as well, with Senci and Kudilkova defeating Lowe and Pollock, 8-2, Vidic and Deshmukh getting the win over Larsen and Hawkins, 8-3, and Martin and Nieuwoudt edging Bergeson and Thatcher, 8-6.
In Sunday’s match the Aggies managed to win the doubles point, but only picked up one win in singles against the University of Denver.
Larsen and Hawkins defeated Stephanie Ginsburg and Niki Armbrust, 8-3, at No. 2 doubles, while Bergeson and Thatcher were victorious against Elizabeth Matthews and Beth Messaros, 8-6, at No. 3.
“Haley [Hawkins] and Carolyn [Larsen] played great,” Wright said. “They just started playing aggressive. They’ve been playing a little timid the previous couple of matches and so that was really good to see them step up and put together some solid doubles play.”
The No. 1 doubles match featuring Lowe and Pollock against Yanick Dullens and Barbara Kourim was called with Denver ahead, 6-5, because the Aggies had already won the team doubles point.
“You want to finish the game and get the win on the record, and I think we could have, but it’s a team effort,” Pollock said. “We got the team point and that’s all that matters.”
Larsen was the lone Aggie to win her singles match, defeating Maru Altamirano, 6-4, 6-4.
Pollock managed to take her match against Ginsburg to three sets, but ended up falling, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.
The remaining Aggies were all defeated in two sets with Dullens defeating Lowe, 6-2, 6-3, Bergeson falling to Kourim, 6-3, 6-2, Matthews winning over Ferguson, 6-2, 6-2, and Messaros topping Hawkins, 6-0, 6-1.
With the three losses, the Aggies dropped to 5-8 on the season.
“I really felt like we were going to play better than we did, but hopefully we learn from some of the things we did,” Wright said. “As much as we wanted to have those wins it’s not the end of the world.”
Pollock said, “It really was a tough weekend, but everyone fought hard and they really were close matches. We don’t feel too discouraged.”