UNCG 6, Western Carolina 1
GREENSBORO, N.C. - No. 70 UNCG swept the doubles matches and claimed five of the six singles matches to move to 4-0 in Southern Conference play with its 6-1 victory over Western Carolina on Sunday afternoon at the UNCG Tennis Courts.
Due to Western Carolina (2-8, 1-5 SoCon) only having five players, UNCG received default victories at No. 3 doubles and No. 6 singles.
Nitooli Wilkins and Lucy Dougherty moved to 8-2 in doubles this season with their 8-2 win at No. 2 doubles, which clinched the doubles point for UNCG (7-3, 4-0 SoCon). Stephanie Macfarlane and Alex Whitehead also cruised at No. 1 with their 8-3 victory.
Already up 2-0 in the match, Mikayla Rogers added to the Spartan lead with her impressive 6-0, 6-0 win at No. 5 singles against Katie Barry. Whitehead clinched the match for UNCG at No. 2 singles with a 6-1, 6-2 win.
Macfarlane made it 5-0 for UNCG with a 6-0, 6-1 victory at No. 3 singles and teammate Niltooli Wilkins pushed her singles record to 9-1 with a 6-1, 6-4 win at No. 1.
The Catamounts scored their lone point of the afternoon at No. 4 singles as Karen Jimenez pulled out a 7-6 (9), 6-2 win.
The Spartans will hit the road on Thursday for a nonconference match against Liberty at 2 p.m.
South Carolina 7, College of Charleston 0
MT. PLEASANT, S.C. - The No. 33 South Carolina Gamecocks proved too strong from top-to-bottom ending the College of Charleston women's tennis team's four-match winning streak with a 7-0 shutout on Sunday afternoon at the College of Charleston Tennis Center at Patriots Point.
The Cougars (7-6) stayed with the perennial SEC power Gamecocks (10-4) relinquishing only one love-set in all six singles matches. Sophomore Christin Newman fought until the very end against one of the nation's top players by forcing a third-set super tiebreaker with No. 41-ranked Anya Morgina of South Carolina at the No. 1 line. She won the second set by a considerable 6-2 margin, but fell a couple of points short in the tiebreak, 10-7.
The highlight of the match came from senior Emma Hayman and sophomore Irene Viana , who claimed an 8-4 upset over the No. 34-ranked USC tandem of Dominika Kanakova and Dijana Stojic at the top of the lineup. The CofC duo improved to 6-3 on the season and is currently on a four-match winning streak against the top combinations from Charleston Southern, No. 72 Wisconsin, East Carolina and now USC.
"South Carolina showed their experience in coming back from a 6-3 deficit at No. 2 doubles to win the deciding match, 9-7," CofC Director of Tennis Angelo Anastopoulo said. "They carried that momentum into the singles competition and built some large early leads that we could not overcome. We fought very hard at all positions, but South Carolina was just too good."
The Cougars will welcome No. 15-ranked Clemson (12-5) in a first-ever Charleston meeting between the two in-state schools in its fourth-straight matchup in four days on Monday, March 21, at 1 p.m. (ET).