April 5, 2008

Whitman 6, PLU 3
Whitworth 7, PLU 2

Erika Feltus hits a backhand in doubles

PARKLAND - 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 8 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.

With the losses, the Lutes are now 8-9 for the season and 6-8 in conference matches.

Whitman improved to 9-4 in the Northwest Conference with the win over the Lutes. The Missionaries 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 Ashley Brooks beat Justine Hays in a super tiebreaker, 2-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-6). In another close match, PLU's Liz Currey beat Linh Aven, 7-5, 7-5, at No. 2 singles.

The visiting Pirates improved their overall record to 14-4 and their Northwest Conference mark to 12-2, good for second place, with the victory.

Pacific Lutheran plays at Pacific next Friday and at Linfield next Saturday to close out the regular season before turning its attention to the conference championship tournament scheduled for April 18-19 in Yakima.

- PLU -