April 8, 2008

WOMEN’S TENNIS: Lutes Travel to Oregon for Two NWC Matches

COMING UP: Pacific Lutheran (8-9 overall, 6-9 NWC) at Pacific (1-15 overall, 1-13 NWC), Friday, 1 p.m.; PLU at Linfield (13-5 overall, 13-0 NWC), Saturday, 3:30 p.m.

TWO MORE BEFORE NWC TOURNAMENT: The Pacific Lutheran women’s tennis team will soon turn its attention to the Northwest Conference Championships scheduled for April 18-19 at the Yakima Tennis Club in Yakima, but prior to that the Lutes have some unfinished business. PLU closes out the regular season this weekend with a pair of conference matches against teams on the bottom and top of the NWC. The Lutes face conference cellar dweller Pacific on Friday and battle NWC leader Linfield on Saturday. The Pacific match was rescheduled from March 8 when the teams were to have played a tennis “doubleheader” in Tacoma. PLU won the first meeting between the teams by a 9-0 score, losing a total of nine games in doubles and 16 games in singles. Linfield earned a 7-2 win in the first meeting between the Wildcats and PLU on March 7. Pacific Lutheran picked up its two points from Ashley Coats at No. 3 singles and from Emily Starr at No. 5 singles. Linfield has won six straight Northwest Conference women’s tennis titles and seems poised to make it seven in a row.

CONFERENCE NOTES: Pacific Lutheran will serve as host for the Northwest Conference Championships in Yakima. A total of six teams will qualify for the tournament and that list of six has already been figured out. The Lutes currently hold down sixth in the conference standings, but they could move up a spot depending on how the final matches go for PLU and for fifth-place Willamette, which is 6-7 in the conference. Linfield will be the top seed, followed by Whitworth. Both of those teams will get opening round byes. Lewis & Clark and Whitman are both 10-4, followed by Willamette and PLU.

CURREY IS HOT: Senior Liz Currey is on a nice little run, having won six straight singles matches at her No. 2 position. She is 12-5 in singles this year, including 10-4 against conference opponents.

LAST WEEK: Pacific Lutheran battled two of the top teams in Northwest Conference women's tennis on nearly even terms but came up on the wrong end of matches against Whitman and Whitworth. Whitman defeated the Lutes, 6-3, in a match that began at about 9 p.m. Friday and lasted until approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday at the UPS Tennis Pavilion. The Lutes came back less than 12 hours later to face Whitworth in a contest at the PLU tennis courts. The visiting Pirates won that match, 7-2, as the players battled 48-degree temperatures and occasional light mist and wind. Whitman won two of the three doubles points, with PLU's No. 2 team of Liz Currey and Ashley Brooks defeating Hadley DeBree and Alex Robinson, 8-6, for the Lutes' point. There were four singles matches that were decided in straight sets and the teams split those. For the Lutes, Currey won at No. 2 and Esther Ham was victorious at No. 5. Two of the singles matches went to a third set, and both went in favor of the visitors. Divneet Kaur beat Ashley Coats, 2-6, 6-0, 7-6 at No. 3, and Jacquie Frank topped Morgan Jones 7-6, 4-6, 6-2 at No. 6. Whitworth won all three doubles points to get off to a great start against the Lutes. The singles competition was close as two of the matches went to super tiebreaker and two more were closely contested. In the feature match at No. 1, Rachel Burns beat Erika Feltus, 6-7, 6-4, 1-0, with the super tiebreaker going to Burns by a 10-7 score. At No. 4 singles, PLU's Brooks beat Justine Hays in a super tiebreaker, 2-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-6). In another close match, PLU's Currey beat Linh Aven, 7-5, 7-5, at No. 2 singles.

- PLU -