Women’s tennis tops No. 29 Kentucky, 6-1

The women’s team continued their winning streak while cruising to a 6-1 victory in Sunday’s home match against Kentucky.

While sophomore Amanda McDowell was injured, the rest of the girls were able to successfully match up with those they faced.

The team swept all three of the doubles matches to post a 1-0 lead going into singles play. Junior Christy Striplin and freshman Noelle Hickey were the first to finish their matches, taking control of the game with an 8-0 win over the team of Megan Broderick and Sarah Woestmann. Striplin did an almost perfect job of playing the net against Broderick and Woestmann, winning several of the points and contributing to the victory.

The next win during the doubles matches came from senior Kristi Miller and sophomore Kirstin Flower on Court No. 1. They had little trouble in overtaking Kentucky’s Carolina Escamilla and Christine Johnston on their way to a 8-2 win to secure the point and the lead for Tech.

The last to finish was the team of senior Whitney McCray and freshman Sasha Krupina on court three, pulling out a close 8-7 (7-5) tiebreak over Lauren Meier and Alaina Trgovich. Krupina helped step up to fill the void left from Amanda McDowell’s absence to finish off Tech’s doubles sweep over Kentucky.

In singles play, freshman Maya Johansson was the first to win in singles as her opponent, Lauren Meier, suffered an injury and was forced to retire from the match. The shortened match widened Tech’s lead at 2-0. Johansson was able to keep the match close up until that point, though, leading 4-3.

McCray beat Escamilla in straight sets, winning 6-3, 6-2 and bringing Tech’s team score to 3-0 and within a point of victory.

On court No. 1, Miller quickly took hold of the match in her first set, winning it 6-1. Her opponent, Woestmann, fought back in the second set to keep it close, but eventually fell to Miller 7-5.

Singles position No. 3 and No. 4 both saw the players play close matches that ended in tiebreaks. Striplin came out on the short side of the tiebreak to Broderick.

Although she bounced back and won the second set after a tough loss in the first (1-6, 6-3, (10-6)), she was unable to close out the match and accounted for Tech’s sole point lost. Flower did just the opposite, coming out on top in her strong tiebreak win over Alaina Trgovich (6-2, 4-6, (10-4)).

Hickey was the last to finish her match with Christine Johnston as the two were fighting to win the second set. While the point was essentially meaningless, the match still saw the two play on.

Noelle closed out with a win to put Tech’s score to 6-1 with a match score of 6-4, 6-4.

The next match will be at home against the No. 4 ranked Georgia Bulldogs this Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Bill Moore Tennis Center. They have beaten the Bulldogs before, sweeping them 7-0. during the ITA National Championships in Madison, Wisc. enroute to the national championship.

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