STEPHENVILLE – Tarleton started off Lone Star Conference tennis action in the right direction as the No. 43 TexAnns defeated UT Permian Basin 8-1 at the Potishman-Lard Tennis Courts Saturday.
"It's always a good thing when you can start off conference play with a win," said head coach
Lance Drake. "I thought our anticipation and movement in doubles improved, which led to some good outcomes for us. We encountered some different challenges in singles and handled most of those situations well. Our determination has been good.
"Alicia had a very dominating performance today and Elena, Tori, and Luiza were solid. Erika did a good job of overcoming some adversity and Ellie played hard," he continued. "Overall, I'm really proud of them. There is still work to be done and we're going to continue to make a concentrated effort to improve in some areas every time we take the court."
Tarleton opened the match with a sweep of doubles play. The freshman tandem of
Alicia Barbaroux and
Tori Simmons improved to 5-0 this season with an 8-1 win in the No. 3 match while
Erika Johnston and
Ashleigh Elward (8-2) and
Elena Preadca and
Luiza Ferraro-Adas (8-3) handled the No. 2 and 1 matches, respectively.
The sweep improves Tarleton's overall doubles record this season to 19-4 and a 19-1 mark against NCAA Division II opponents.
In singles,
Erika Johnston had her hands full in the No. 1 match but overcome the adversity to win her match 6-3, 0-6, 10-5. Preadca (6-2, 6-2) handled the No. 2 match while Barbaroux put together a dominant 6-0, 6-0 sweep to round out the top half of the Tarleton lineup.
Barbaroux, a freshman from France and the reigning LSC women's tennis athlete of the week, improved to 6-1 in singles play this season.
Tori Simmons, who improved to 7-1 in singles play with her win, took care of the No. 5 match with a 6-4, 6-3 win while
Luiza Ferraro-Adas rounded out Tarleton's victories with a 6-3, 6-2 win in the No. 6 match.
Ellie Stevens fell in the No. 4 spot 4-6, 4-6.
Tarleton will return to action next weekend when they visit St. Edward's for a 12 p.m. match in Austin Saturday.
