Playing on St. Patrick’s Day did not give the Lady Catamounts any luck last week, as the Western Carolina women’s tennis team lost to the Wofford Terriers on Tuesday, Mar. 17, falling 7-0.
The Terriers jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead after sweeping all three doubles matches. Sonia Anand and Kristin Demosthenes won at No. 3 doubles beating Emily Turke and Chelsea Best 8-1. The duo of Haley Baird and Sabrina Smyers quickly followed suit on court No. 2 as they downed Izabella Glinska and Layne Arnold 8-2 to secure the doubles point. Senior Cayley Wetzig and freshman Ashley Lawrence finished off the sweep on court No. 1 as they defeated Ainhoa Iglesias and Amanda Massey 8-5.
In singles play, Baird wasted no time in giving the Terriers a 2-0 lead as she downed Arnold 6-0, 6-1. Lawrence was the next Terrier off the court as she knocked off Massey 6-3, 6-4. Anand and Betsy Hauer clinched the match simultaneously as Hauer defeated Turke 6-4, 6-2 and Anand breezed by Best 6-2, 6-0 giving the Terriers a 5-0 lead with two matches remaining.
On court No. 1, Wetzig had to go to a third set match tiebreaker to prevail but did so on a match winning lob that clipped the back of the baseline giving her the victory by a score of 6-3, 4-6, 1-0 (10-7). Smyers completed the Terrier sweep in singles play as she ousted Iglesias 6-3, 6-1.
With the win, the Terriers are now 1-0 in the Southern Conference and 2-6 overall, while the Catamounts fall to 3-7 overall and 0-2 in the SoCon.
WCU’s loss on Mar. 17 was preceded by their conference opener on Mar. 16 against Wofford. Western Carolina dropped the Southern Conference match of the season 7-0 to Elon on Sunday, Mar. 16 at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.
The Catamounts were swept in doubles play by Elon and then the Phoenix took all the match points in singles as well.
