Lopes lose close match to Aggies

Sunday, March 25

Edinburg, Texas

7:00 A.M.

Grand Canyon

New Mexico State

Photo by: Slaven Gujic

3/25/2018 11:03:00 AM | Women's Tennis

Box Score

By: Jerob Moon

EDINBURG, Texas—The Grand Canyon women's tennis team lost a close 4-3 decision to New Mexico State on Sunday to wrap up the first WAC cluster of the season. After facing a 3-1 deficit the Lopes regrouped to tie the match, but were unable to win the final singles match as the Aggies squeaked out a win.

"Today the girls lost a heartbreaker, it came down to one point," head coach Greg Prudhomme said. "Certianly happy we could split the singles, it shows a good level of our singles play, but to get that win we needed either the doubles point or we needed to come through on another singles court. It was tough that this match slipped away so close."

In doubles New Mexico State took the first match at court two defeating Valentina Mokrova and Celina Buhr 6-1, but the Lopes rebounded with a win at No. 1. Lana Rinaldi and Emilia Occhipinti won their match 6-2, making the third and final match the decider on who would take the doubles point. Martina Lo Pumo and Autum Prudhomme battled in a close match throughout at court three, and took a slight lead at 5-4. The Aggies responded getting the score back in their favor at 6-5, but the freshmen pair fought back and took the match to tiebreakers. New Mexico State would take the tiebreakers 7-6 (8-6) and the doubles point by the narrowest of margins.

Down 2-0 after the first match of singles, the Lopes responded and tied the match up in the late stages. Senior Kylie Waschuk responded at No. 6 with a straight set win to give GCU their first team point of the match. After the Aggies took down Rinaldi at No. 2 and took a 3-1 lead, the Lopes rattled off two straight wins to stay in the match. Buhr won her sixth straight match at No. 5, taking down her opponent 6-3, 6-3, and Occhipinti won at No. 3 in straight sets. With the score knotted up at three a piece it all came down to the final match with Mokrova at No. 4. Yadira Rubio proved too much for the freshman from Germany, as the Aggies took the final match 6-3, 6-3 and won the match 4-3.

Despite the two losses to wrap up the weekend, coach Prudhomme and the team is looking forward to getting back on the practice courts to prepare for the final push of conference play, and the conference tournament at the end of April.

"We would've liked to come away with two or three wins this weekend in our first round of conference matches," Prudhomme said. "The girls had a convincing win and two close losses, so we'll build on all of the successes from the individual singles and doubles wins and keep working hard the next couple weeks to get ready for the next round of matches. Now we're a month away from the tournament, so we've still got work to do. We're going to take advantage of those extra days and weeks and keep improving."

The team will be off until April 7 and 8, when they travel to Seattle, Wash. and take on UMKC and Seattle U to wrap up conference play.