PLANO, Texas – Colorado State University Pueblo women's tennis continued its spring break trip here Monday afternoon by posting a 4-3 victory over Collin County Community College in an exhibition match at the Collin County Tennis Courts.
Monday's match came one day after the ThunderWolves opened its spring break trip with a 5-0 exhibition loss at Seward County Community College in Liberal, Kan. The NCAA does not count matches against non-four-year schools as matches, so teams play those matches as exhibitions.
In Monday's match, the Pack opened by winning two of the three doubles matches to secure the doubles point and take a 1-0 lead in the match.
The first Pack win came at No. 3 doubles as junior
Malaya Pendon (Pueblo, Colo./Pueblo East) and freshman
Yelena Travica (Winnipeg, Manitoba/Maples Collegiate) won by default as Collin County did not have enough players.
Collin County would pick up a win at No. 1 doubles as Ekaterina Orlova and Mikayla Plitt defeated the Pack tandem of sophomore
Margot Aebischer (Etupes, France/Eastern Arizona College) and freshman
Mariangel Nunez (Weston, Fla./Unidad Educativa "Padre Claret"), 6-4.
The Pack, though, would seal the doubles point thanks a 6-4 win at the No. 2 spot by junior
Valentina Brienza (Rionero in Vulture, Italy/University of the District of Columbia) and junior
Marta Garcia (Alcala de Hernares, Spain/Cardinal Stritch).
Following doubles play, the teams turned their attention to singles play and the match came down to the outcome of the No. 4 singles match.
The Pack opened singles with a win by default at the No. 6 spot from Travica.
Orlova would give the Cougars its first win of the match as she earned a 6-0, 6-2 win at the No. 1 spot over Aebischer.
Plitt picked up a win (6-1, 6-3) at the No. 2 spot over Brienza to tie the match at 2-all.
Nunez would help the Pack pick up its second win in singles at the No. 3 spot as she defeated Jinsol Yang, 6-2, 6-2 to give the Pack a 3-2 lead.
Collin County would tie the match at 3-all thanks to win at No. 5 singles by Alyssa Glasgow over Pendon, 7-5, 6-2.
With Glasgow's win at No. 5 singles, the match at No. 4 singles between Garcia and Sophie Dalla would determine the winning team in the match.
Dalla won the first set, 6-3, but Garcia rallied to post a 7-5 win in the second set to force a third set tiebreaker. In the tiebreaker, the two players battled back-and-forth before Garcia would ultimately prevail, 9-7, in the tiebreaker to seal the Pack's victory.
The Pack will conclude its spring break trip with two matches on Tuesday as they open the day with a 7:30 p.m. MT match at Dallas Baptist, before concluding the day with a 2 p.m. MT match in Wichita Falls, Texas, against fifth-ranked Midwestern State.