Colorado State University Athletics
Colorado State
Utah State
Recap: Rams drop close match to Utah State, 4-3
4/15/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Samuel Feldman
CSU Athletic Communications
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The Colorado State women’s tennis team dropped a nail-biting match to Utah State on Friday afternoon, 4-3. CSU entered the match on a four-match home win streak, and a two-match winning streak overall.
The atmosphere at the Fort Collins Country Club was electric during the entire contest. Both teams went on several rallies during the singles portion of the match, and the fans were involved in the action the entire time.
“We have been working on that the last few weeks”, CSU head coach Jon Messick said about the intensity and energy during the match. “I though it made the difference in our match vs. UNC and we carried that over to today. They (team) really had some energy today and even the fans got into it today.”
Doubles action was highly contested. Utah State took an early match lead by winning the first match of the day on court No. 3 with a 6-2 victory, followed by a victory on court No. 2, 6-2. Although the Aggies took the first match early, the last two courts had tight action. The Rams' duo of Aina Hernandez Soler/Madison Porter was trailing at No. 1 singles but came back to take a 5-3 lead. At that point, Utah State clinched the victory at No. 2, completing doubles. CSU needed just one point to clinch the win on court No. 1 when action was halted.
Singles action was full of sparks and great play by both sides. Rams’ freshman Emily Kolbow put CSU on the scoreboard first when she held onto the No. 3 singles victory by coming from behind. Down two games in the second set (5-3), she rallied to win the next three, plus the tiebreaker, and win her match, 6-2, 7-5.
CSU's Aina Hernandez Soler had an amazing performance in the No. 2 singles matchup. After falling in the first set (6-0), she came out and won four of the first five games in Set 2. Utah State did not give up, battling back to force a tiebreaker, which Hernandez Soler was able to grab (0-6, 7-6, 6-2).
“It’s always tough when you lose the first set 6-love to have enough positive energy to turn that around," Messick said. "Once Aina got into the meat of the second set and got confidence and got a better game plan against her opponent it allowed her to close out the tiebreaker, and by the third set it shifted the momentum her way."
Madison Porter was defeated by Utah State to seal the contest (6-2, 6-1) for the visiting Aggies. Utah State elected to not finish the contest, which rewarded Celine Voss with a victory.
CSU will continue its homestand on Sunday morning against Boise State. Action begins at the Fort Collins Country Club at 8 a.m. MT. The match was moved indoors earlier this week due to the current weather system predicting heavy precipitation in the area. Admission to the event is free.
Doubles
No. 1: Aina Hernandez Soler/Madison Porter (CSU) vs. Meghan Lyall/Maggie O’Meara (USU) – DNF, 5-3 CSU
No. 2: Ekaterina Tugarinova/Sabrina Demerath (USU) def. Emily Kolbow/Celine Voss (CSU) – 6-2
No. 3: Nini Guensler/Lexi Turley (USU) def. Maddie Buxton/Caroline Henderson (CSU) – 6-2
Singles
No. 1: Nini Guensler (USU) def. Laia Hernandez Soler (CSU) – 6-4, 6-1
No. 2: Aina Hernandez Soler (CSU) def. Ekaterina Tugarinova (USU) – 0-6, 7-6, 6-2
No. 3: Emily Kolbow (CSU) def. Maggie O’Meara (USU) – 6-2, 7-5 (8)
No. 4: Sabrina Demerath (USU) def. Maddie Buxton (CSU) – 6-0, 6-0
No. 5: Monika Van de Vonde (USU) def. Madison Porter (CSU) - 6-2, 6-1
No. 6: Celine Voss (CSU) def. Meghan Lyall (USU) – 1-4 DF
Players Mentioned
