ABILENE - Fresh off last Saturday's arduous tripleheader sweep of Nicholls and McNeese, Abilene Christian's men's and women's tennis teams head to southeastern Texas this weekend for Southland Conference matches against Sam Houston State and Lamar.
The Wildcats will battle the Lady Bearkats Saturday at 11 a.m. before taking part in a Sunday doubleheader vs. the Cardinals at noon.
In a wild and windy Saturday at the Eager Tennis Pavilion, all three of ACU's matches vs. the Colonels and the Cowgirls came down to the wire. In the day's first dual, Kaysie and
Micah Hermsdorf won the last two matches at No. 1 and 4 singles as ACU beat the Colonels, 5-2, and then sophomore
Marco Bensley broke a 3-3 tie vs. Nicholls with his three-set win at No. 6 over Kieran Cronin, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.
The ACU women returned to the court several hours later vs. McNeese and pulled off a 4-3 upset as sophomore
Nada Marjanovic held off Anastasia Surkova at No. 5, 7-5, 7-5, for the dual-clinching point.
The two Wildcat women's victories improved their season mark to 13-4 and pulled them within 2.0 games of first-place Northwestern State (14-4, 7-0), while the ACU men took over the conference's top spot from Nicholls as they improved to 11-9 overall and 3-0 against the league.
In a week that featured many outstanding performances, freshman
Nico Agritelley ACU's lone undefeated player during the Wildcats' 3-1 stretch against Prairie View A&M, Rice, Schreiner and Nicholls. And for these efforts, he was recognized by the Southland Conference as its Player of the Week.
Agritelley went 4-0 in singles to improve to 13-7 this spring and was 3-0 in doubles play with three different partners in raising his season record to 13-5. The Dallas native also won all his matches in straight sets with the exception of a come-from-behind win over Rice's Gustavo Gonzalez, 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.
In ACU's 4-3 decision vs. Nicholls, Agritelley was the first off the singles court with a 6-1, 6-2 decision over Sam Meessen, and earlier he helped clinch the Wildcats' doubles point (w/
Jason Proctor) against Kiernan Cronin and Lukas Clemens, 8-6.
The men's team's recent wins lifted its overall singles mark to a game over .500 at 59-58 (.504), led Agritelley's with 13 victories and then Bensley and junior
Borja Cortés with 11. The Wildcats last week also won eight of nine doubles contests in improving to 34-22 (.607); in fact, ACU hasn't lost a doubles point against a non-ranked opponent since March 8 when it went 0-3 against Cleveland State in a 4-3 loss.
ACU's women's team, meanwhile, pushed its doubles winning streak to three after winning both points against Nicholls and McNeese. These wins gave the Wildcats a 43-16 overall record (.729) as Kaysie and
Micah Hermsdorf improved to 15-1, while the No. 2 and 3 teams of
Brittney Reed/
Erin Walker and Marjanovic Conrad each have 13 wins.
In singles, the Wildcats are 67-49 (.578) and have received 13 wins from
Micah Hermsdorf at No. 1 in addition to 16 victories from Marjanovic. Walker moved to three matches above .500 at 11-8 with her 2-0 weekend, while
Kaysie Hermsdorf earned her 10th win of the spring against nine losses.
This weekend's opponents are currently in the bottom half of the conference standings. Sam Houston has lost its last eight decisions, which have dropped its season and conference records to 3-8 and 1-5.
Lamar is a half-game ahead of the Lady Bearkats at 5-11 and 2-5 as the Cardinals recently defeated Incarnate Word, 5-2.
Lamar's men's team enters this weekend at 12-10 (1-2 SLC) after losing back-to-back games last week to Nicholls (0-7) and A&M-Corpus Christi (1-6). The Cardinals will play at New Orleans on Friday before welcoming the Wildcats.
