Furman 4, Samford 3
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. --- In a battle between two upper-echelon teams in the talent-laden Southern Conference, the Samford University women's tennis team fell just shy of knocking off the Furman Paladins Saturday in a SoCon showdown held indoors at the Pat M. Courington Tennis Pavilion.
The outcome of the critical league contest came down to the final singles match as Furman (6-8, 3-0 SoCon) held on for the slight 4-3 victory. In the decisive contest held on court No. 5, the Paladins' Amanda Murray overcame a first-set deficit to rally for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win against Samford's Rebecca Kirven. The defeat snapped Kirven's four-match winning streak in singles play this season.
The ever-crucial doubles point also came down to the final match Saturday. With the score of the competition deadlocked at one doubles victory apiece, Furman's duo comprised of Katherine Oudin and Margaret Boyette outlasted the Bulldogs' pairing of Lindsey Mallory and Taylor Morgan 9-8.
By winning the doubles point, the Paladins took a critical 1-0 scoring advantage in the match.
Samford (10-3, 2-2 SoCon) and Furman have developed a heated rivalry in their brief three seasons as conference foes. The Bulldogs and Paladins rarely squared off on the hard court until Samford joined the league in 2009.
Last year, the Bulldogs used a 6-1 victory at Furman to snap the Paladins' 100-match SoCon regular-season winning streak. The unprecedented stretch encompassed 11 years of undefeated play as Furman dominated the SoCon. Then, in the 2010 SoCon Tournament, the Paladins avenged their earlier loss to Samford with a 4-3 triumph held in Charleston, S.C.
On Saturday, rain swept through the Birmingham area forcing the teams to play indoors at the sparkling Pat M. Courington Tennis Pavilion.
After Furman earned the doubles point, the Paladins extended their lead to 2-0 as 86th-ranked Monica Arguello defeated Samford's Morgan 6-3, 7-6(5), on court No. 1. The Bulldogs then bounced back with victories on courts No. 2 and No. 3 to even the score of the match at 2-2.
Samford's Madelie Janse Van Rensburg registered a straight-set singles victory in the No. 3 matchup, while the Bulldogs' Andrie Meiring outlasted Furman's Oudin 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 on court No. 2. With their respective wins, both Janse Van Rensburg and Meiring improved to 11-2 in singles play this season.
In the final third of matches held at the Courington Center Saturday, the teams split the next pair of outcomes held on courts No. 4 and No. 6.
Furman's Boyette earned a victory in the No. 4 singles contest, while the Bulldogs' Lindsey Mallory breezed to a 6-2, 6-4 win on court No. 6. With her straight-set triumph, Mallory extended her team-best winning streak to eight-consecutive matches and improved her singles record on the season to 9-1.
Following Mallory's score-tying victory, all the attention of the match shifted to court No. 5 where Murray and Kirven battled for the win. Samford's Kirven earned the first set 6-2, but then Murray bounced back to take the final two frames 6-3, 6-4. With Murray's win, Furman clinched the hard-fought match by a score of 4-3.
Chattanooga 6, Wofford 1
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - The Wofford women's team traveled to the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga Saturday afternoon for a match against the Mocs in Manker Patten Tennis Center. The Terriers posted a singles and a doubles win, but lost the match 6-1.
Wofford moves to 10-8 overall on the season with a 2-2 Southern Conference record. Chattanooga grabs a 7-6 overall record and improves to 3-1 in the conference. The Mocs have won three straight in Southern Conference play.
Wofford's senior doubles duo, Haley Baird and Emilia Milovanovic, posted their second straight doubles win after defeating UTC's Alexa Flynn and Emily Hangstefer 8-5. Chattanooga went on to with the other two doubles matches, earning the doubles point.
In singles, freshman Sarah Evans posted the lone win and point for the Terriers. Evans grabbed her 12th singles win of the season after defeating Hangstefer in a tight match at the No. 3 spot. Evans came back after a 1-6 loss in the first set to beat Hangstefer 7-6 in the second set. The match was taken to a super tie-breaker and Evans came on top with an 11-9 win.
The Mocs tallied a 6-1 win after defeating the Terriers in the remainder of the singles matches.
College of Charleston 7, Davidson 0
DAVIDSON, N.C. - The College of Charleston Cougars earned their second straight 7-0 Southern Conference win as they sent Davidson to its seventh defeat in a row on Saturday morning in women's tennis at the Knobloch Tennis Center.
The Wildcats (4-13, 0-4 SoCon) are in the midst of a four-match homestand, but have dropped the first three of it. College of Charleston improved to 10-7 on the season and 2-0 in league matches. CofC owns a 27-4 all-time record vs. Davidson.
The 'Cats' last win vs. the Cougars came on Apr. 22, 2008 when it took a 4-2 victory in the SoCon Tournament to reach the finals.
Despite having used 15 different combinations in doubles team this year, the 'Cat hung tough to start the morning match off. The senior duo of Samantha Galainena and Alison Rauh, playing for the first time together this year, took the No. 2 Cougar team down to the wire before bowing out at 8-6.
The No. 1 team of freshmen Brites Moniz-Soares and Nisha Crouser also played well, falling just short in an 8-6 defeat to Emma Hayman and Irene Viana. The sisters of Caroline and Christin Newman then swept the doubles play for CofC with an 8-4 win at No. 3.
Davidson was unable to score a single set win in the six singles matches as it fell in all six matches. The most a Wildcat was able to score in a set was three games as the Cougars rolled to the 7-0 win.
UNCG 6, Charlotte 1
GREENSBORO, N.C. - UNCG swept all three doubles matches before taking five of the six singles matches en route to defeating Charlotte, 6-1, on Saturday at the Piedmont Indoor Tennis Center.
Niltooli Wilkins and Lucy Dougherty got things going for UNCG as they won at No. 2 doubles, 8-1, to move to 10-2 on the season. Stephanie Macfarlane and Alex Whitehead won 8-3 at No. 1 to clinch the doubles point before Mikayla Rogers and Annette Rios made it a clean sweep with an 8-6 victory.
Dougherty gave UNCG a 2-0 lead as she scored a 6-0, 6-0 victory at No. 5 singles before Dilara Yurtkuran won at No. 4, 6-1, 6-3.
Macfarlane clinched the match for UNCG as she won 6-0, 6-2 at No. 3 and Niltooli Wilkins improved her record to 11-1 with a 6-3, 6-4 victory at No. 1 singles.
The Spartans narrowly fell at No. 2 singles before winning the final match of the day, 3-6, 6-0, 6-3 at No. 6 singles to give UNCG the 6-1 victory.
The Spartans will return to action on Thursday as they host Charleston Southern for a 2 p.m. match at the UNCG Tennis Courts.