STEPHENVILLE, Texas – Tarleton ended their non-conference slate with yet another impressive victory, proving they are one of the top teams in the Western Athletic Conference once again entering league play.
In a battle between two 7-4 teams Tuesday, the Texans improved to 8-4 with a 4-3 win over Drake (7-5) in Stephenville. Tarleton is now 4-1 at home this year.
The Texans played several established programs to begin the spring, including No. 4 Oklahoma, Missouri, UTSA, Texas State, Sacramento State, Pacific, Louisiana Tech, and most recently, Drake. Tarleton posted a .667 winning percentage through their non-conference run, ahead of their nine-match conference slate that begins Friday.
The Bulldogs got off to the good start on Tuesday, taking the doubles point with wins on Courts 1 and 2. Drake's top pair of Darinka Stepan and Mille Haagensen started with a 6-2 win over Tarleton's
Martha Makantasi and
Clara Sobius. On Court 3, the Texans'
Ximena Morales and
Elif Albayrak responded with a 6-3 win over Jyun-Yi Lee and Elizabete Klavinska. In a close match on Court 2 that Tarleton nearly came back on, Drake's Ines Stephani and Oriana Parkins-Godwin got the better of
Emma Persson and
Elsa Boisson 6-4.
Like Tarleton's match on Saturday, there were two decisive victories in singles, one by either team, and four close singles matches. Sobius (8-4) started with another sound win on Court 6, defeating Lee 6-0 6-3. It marked the freshman's sixth straight singles win, the longest active winning streak on the team.
On Court 5, Drake's Parkins-Godwin dealt Albayrak her first singles loss of the spring 6-3 6-0.
With Drake leading 2-1, Tarleton picked up the next three singles matches to take the team win.
Boisson defeated Stepan 6-3 7-5 on Court 3 to improve to 7-3 overall, 5-2 on Courts 2-3. Then Morales had a perfect day, adding to her doubles win with a singles win over Klavinska 6-3 7-6(4). Morales now owns a winning mark at 5-4.
And like she has so often this season, Persson earned the match clincher with a win at the No. 1 position, defeating Stephani 4-6 6-2 6-2. This was the fourth time in Tarleton's eight wins that Persson provided the match clincher, and it was the fifth time in Persson's nine singles wins that she came back after dropping the first set. She's a team-best 9-2 on the year.
To end the day, Makantasi had as competitive match as one can possibly have. It took 22 points in a first set tiebreak to decide who went up 1-0, a match that eventually went to a 10-point third set super tiebreaker. Drake's Haagensen took the win on Court 2 7-6(10) 2-6 [10-2].
The Texans still have two more matches in Stephenville this week to end their six-match homestand. They'll begin a run of nine straight regular season WAC matches on Friday against UTRGV at 1 p.m. CT.
