Women's Tennis Handed First Loss of Season

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GREELEY, Colo.- The University of Northern Colorado women's tennis team was dealt their first loss of the season in a Big Sky Conference matchup against Northern Arizona University Sunday at Workout West. The Bears fell 5-2 to the Lumberjacks.

Coming off a decisive 7-0 win over conference foe Portland State two weeks ago, UNC faced a tough matchup against NAU.

The UNC number two doubles team of sophomore Jennifer Whateley and freshman Sydney Bell got the only win of the day for the Bears in doubles action, defeating NAU's Aimee Oki and Nicole Perez 8-6.

"Number two doubles competed hard today," head coach Brenda Vlasak said. "They really worked well as a team."

Seniors Tabatha and Tiffany Knop lost 8-2 in number one doubles play to the Lumberjacks Orsi Golovics and Malia Wahinepio. At the number three doubles spot, NAU's Edit Suhajda and Yumi Hasegawa defeated UNC's Luiza Xavier and Hannah LaForest 8-3.

In singles play the Bears got key wins from the number one and number five spots. Senior Tabatha Knop continued her season's success with decisive straight-set win, 6-3, 6-0, over Golovics.

Bell also got a win from the five spot in a hard fought three-set match against Perez, winning 6-1, 3-6, 10-7.

The Bears battled hard in the rest of the day's matchups but the Lumberjacks were just too much to handle.

Senior Tiffany Knop lost 6-0, 6-3 to Suhajda at number two singles. At number three singles, Whateley lost 6-4, 6-1 to Oki. Senior Xavier also lost at the number four spot, 6-3, 6-3 to Wahinepio. Rounding out the day's action at number six singles, Hasegawa dealt UNC's Jill Kappel a straight-set loss 6-0, 6-3.

"I felt like we competed well today," Vlasak said. "We need to close out at key moments in our matches."

The Bears will hit the road next for back-to-back-to-back matchups against Gonzaga on Friday, Eastern Washington on Saturday and Idaho on Sunday.