MAGNOLIA, Ark. – "Two-win Tuesday." That's what it looked like for Southern Arkansas Women's Tennis as the Muleriders beat a pair of Great American Conference foes from the Live Oak Tennis Courts. SAU edged Henderson State 4-3 and dismissed Ouachita 7-0 to improve to 3-1 in league play and 10-12 overall. The Muleriders have won three straight matches, all conference affairs, and are 5-2 in their last seven outings. SAU closes out GAC action on Wednesday against Southeastern Oklahoma at 2:30 p.m. in Magnolia.
In the first match of the day, Henderson State took an early 1-0 lead after claiming the doubles point with wins at lines 1 and 3. The opening action was tightly contested as HSU's Mulan Kamoe and Kristina Kozlova topped SAU's
Kalley Smith and
Greta Wallin 6-3 at the top line, while HSU's Marianna Murcia and Tirzah Bailey edged SAU's
Inna Serpukhova and
Sarah Roy 6-4 at line three.
The Muleriders bounced back with four straight-set singles victories. In only one set did a Reddie opponent manage to win a fourth point.
At line two,
Lena Milosevic beat HSU's Kozlova 6-2, 6-4 and
Annika Berrendorf handled the Reddies' Jenna Bohnert 6-1, 6-3 at line three. Southern Arkansas earned big wins at the bottom of the lineup as Wallin beat Haarini Balakrishnan 6-1, 6-3, while
Honoka Yoshimura defeated Neha Donda 6-1, 6-0.
The victory is the second for the Muleriders over Henderson State this season, the sixth against the Reddies since SAU's first reboot season of 2018-19 and just the second in Magnolia during that span.
In the evening's contest,
Amber Young clinched the match for the Muleriders winning the third singles point over Ouachita's Shelly Davilus 6-4, 6-2.
At line one,
Sarah Roy put away OUA's Austynn Crocker 6-4, 7-6 (5), while Milosevic beat the Tigers' Natalia Zamora 6-2, 6-3. At line three, Berrendorf picked up her team-leading 14
th singles victory this spring with a 6-4, 6-3 decision over Ouachita's Ali May. Wallin won at line four with a 7-5, 6-2 result over Olivia Gaston and Yoshimura was victorious at line five as she defeated Clarisa Valenzuela 6-1, 6-2.
SAU started the match by cruising to doubles point win with a 6-1 result by Berrendorf and Milosevic at doubles two and a 6-1 result by Roy and Yoshimura at doubles three.
The win over the Tigers pushes SAU's record in the GAC series to 5-0.
