STEPHENVILLE – The No. 21 Tarleton TexAnn Tennis team dropped its home-opening Lone Star Conference match with No. 7 Abilene Christian, falling 8-1 to Wildcats at Potishman-Lard Tennis Courts in Stephenville.
“It was another tough weather day for the players with high winds throughout the entire match,” Tarleton head tennis coach Lance Drake said. “We started out a little nervous, making too many errors and digging ourselves into a hole early. We made good runs in the first and second flights of doubles and we had our opportunities, but we just unable to capitalize on them.
The Wildcats were able to take an early 3-0 lead over the TexAnns after sweeping all three doubles matches. Flight one saw Mariana Freitas and Rocio Cabanillas fall 9-8 to the nation's sixth-ranked duo of Jaclyn Walker and Dina Pavlin, while Jade Charlot and Evgeniya Prokofeva dropped their match 8-6 to Cassie Carver and Julia Mongin in No. 2 doubles. Adrianna Jaskova and Carole Julen, meanwhile fell 8-4 to Hannah Kelley and Lauren White.
“Both first and second flights of doubles did a lot better in some of the things we have been working on,” Drake said. “ We are not there yet, but are making progress.”
Tarleton came away with just one win out of the six flights of singles play. Prokofeva picked up the lone win for the TexAnns, downing White (6-3, 6-4) in No. 6 singles. Jaskova dropped the first flight (6-1, 6-1) to Monglin and Freitas fell in No. 2 singles (6-0, 6-0) to Walker. Charlot fell (6-3, 7-6) to Carver in No. 4 singles, while Julen lost her match with Kelley (6-4, 6-2.ACU closed out the match when Cabanillas dropped her match (4-2, DNF) to Pavlin.
“Prokofeva played very well today and I was really pleased with how she stayed in the match and kept her focus,” Drake said. “The second set was very close throughout and Evgeniya willed her way to the victory. I am very happy for her and was excited to see her get the win the way she did.
Tarleton's spring record fell to 8-5 overall and 1-1 in the LSC with the loss, while ACU improved to 13-2 overall and 2-0 in conference play.
The TexAnns will have a few weeks to regroup before returning to conference play when Tarleton hosts East Central on Thursday, March 25.
