Women's Tennis | 1/15/2016 1:32:00 PM
ABILENE – Abilene Christian's women's tennis team will once again compete at the Indiana Winter Invitational, which takes place Jan. 16 to 18 at the IU Tennis Center.
The No. 50 Hoosiers will welcome Abilene Christian in addition to Marquette and Wright State for the tournament. The invite format will include doubles flights and round robin singles play.
The Wildcats combined to win eight singles matches and 11 doubles contests during last season's tournament.
Kaysie Hermsdorf,
Nada Marjanovic and
Lucile Pothier each went 2-0 in singles and Hermsdorf was 5-0 in doubles alongside former Wildcat
Brittney Reed.
ACU combined to win 11 matches the year previous during their first season of NCAA DI eligibility against the likes of Marquette, Harvard, Oregon and the Hoosiers.
ACU started its spring season Sunday with a doubleheader split at No. 12 Oklahoma State. The Wildcats began their day with a 5-2 win vs. Oral Roberts, but lost to the Cowgirls' three nationally ranked singles players and a top-25 doubles team in a 6-1 loss.
Senior
Nada Marjanovic – off to a 2-0 start at the No. 4 position – earned ACU's lone point vs. Oklahoma State. She first topped ORU's Andrada Gordan, 6-1, 7-6 (7-5), and in the afternoon rallied from a set down to defeat Oklahoma State newcomer Katarina Stresnakova, 3-6, 7-6, 1-0.
The Wildcats fared quite well against their former Southland Conference rivals from Oral Roberts, winning all three doubles matches and four of six singles contests. ACU's No. 1 and 3 doubles tandems of
Erin Walker /
Whitney Williams and
Ansley Boarman / Marjanovic each won 6-1, while the No. 2 duo of Hermsdorf and Pothier doubled up the team of Andrada Gordan/Petya Simeonova, 6-3.
Walker, Pothier, Marjanovic and Williams earned straight-set victories in singles at the No. 1, 3, 4 and 5 positions.
"We didn't get it done vs. Oklahoma State but I'm one to believe in moral victories and I thought we competed very well against the No. 12 team in the country – they were very solid," said head coach
Hutton Jones. "Nada got the win at No. 4, and we were close to breaking through in some of the other matches even though the final scores don't quite reflect our effort … overall, it was a great and tough environment to be in and that was a solid win for us over Oral Roberts, which is much improved from the last time we saw them two seasons ago."
Indiana is the only nationally ranked team ACU will see this weekend. The Hoosiers finished last spring at 16-7 and 7-6 in the Big Ten before losing in the conference tournament quarterfinals to Penn State.
Marquette was 12-11 in 2015 and reached the second round of the Big East Championship, while Wright State of the Horizon League went 17-11 overall and 3-5 vs. its league.
ACU beat Wright 4-3 in Dayton, Ohio early in the 2014 season with Walker – then a freshman – clinching the match with her comeback win at No. 3 vs. Vanessa Madrigal, 4-6, 6-3, 10-7.
Before returning home to Abilene Monday night the Wildcats will play a 5 p.m. dual match against the Butler Bulldogs in Indianapolis.
ACU defeated Butler in their most recent meeting in February of 2013, 7-0. Seniors Marjanovic and Hermsdorf are the only remaining players from that shutout victory.
