SHREVEPORT, La. -- The ACU women's tennis team opened its 2013 campaign Friday by splitting a pair of non-conference matches that included a loss to a future Southland Conference opponent.
ACU -- ranked No. 3 in the country in NCAA Division II tennis -- whipped Centenary (La.), 9-0, early Friday morning in Shreveport before driving to Natchitoches, La., where it dropped a 6-1 decision to Northwestern State (La.) of the Southland Conference, the league ACU will be joining July 1.
The Wildcats will be back in action Saturday with a pair of matches in Huntsville, a 9 a.m. match against Tyler Junior College, followed by a 1 p.m. match against future Southland Conference foe Sam Houston State.
The Wildcats lost two of three doubles matches to the Demons to fall behind 1-0 and then lost each of the top five singles matches to lose the match. Two of the matches went to three sets as
Micah Hermsdorf lost to Polina Konop, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, at No. 2 singles and newcomer
Nada Marjanovic lost to Amy Williams, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, at No. 5 singles.
Hannah Kelley picked up the only ACU singles win of the match with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Vanja Bogetic at No. 6 singles.
Julia Mongin -- the No. 5 singles players in Division II and, along with her partner,
Brittney Reed, the No. 5 doubles team in NCAA Division II -- lost both of her matches against Northwestern. She and Reed fell 8-4 to the Demons' No. 1 doubles team of Tatiana Larina and Andrea Nedorostova, and then Larina knocked off Mongin, 6-2, 7-6, at No. 1 singles.
"This was by no means a must-win match, but I'm disappointed we lost it," ACU head coach
Hutton Jones said of the loss to the NCAA Division I opponent. "It's early in the season and they had been playing for two weeks before us, so that might have had something to do with it. I've known their coach for quite some and he told me he's glad they caught us early. However, they played well and we didn't play nearly good enough to win."
Earlier in the day, the Wildcats blizted Centenary, winning 9-0. Centenary, in fact, only twon two games off the Wildcats as four Wildcats won singles matches by the score of 6-0 and all three doubles matches were won by 8-0 scores.
