Lutes surprise NWC competition

Women’s tennis upsets Lewis & Clark, takes 4th overall

Brendan Abshier - abshiebk@plu.edu

Mast Sports Reporter

Pacific Lutheran University women’s tennis team wrapped up its season last weekend finishing fourth at the Northwest Conference Championship.
The Lutes opened their tournament play by upsetting No. 3 seed Lewis & Clark 6-3.

The first singles matches went to the Pioneers when Amalia Nilsson defeated PLU senior Erika Feltus 6-3, 6-3 in the No.1 spot and Lisa Harunaga beat senior Liz Currey 6-2, 6-2 in the No. 2 match.

Lute sophomore Ashley Coats might have made things a little easier winning her match against Whitney DeBree 6-2, 6-2. Coats’ teammates got the same idea causing PLU to take the rest of the singles matches with wins from first-years Emily Starr, Esther Ham and sophomore Ashley Brooks.

In doubles competition for PLU, Feltus and Coats defeated Nilsson and DeBree 8-5 and teammates Starr and senior Morgan Jones beat Paige Earhart and Teresa Kiemnec 8-4.

“I was really happy with our team’s progress,” Currey said. “I think we shocked a lot of people who probably underestimated us. It felt really nice to beat the No. 3 seed.”

PLU’s second Friday matchup was against Whitworth. Whitworth defeated the Lutes 5-4.

The match left neither team with an advantage after singles play ended with a 3-3 split.

Feltus defeated Rachel Burns in two sets, but it took three sets for Currey and Coats to defeat their opponents.

In the bottom three spots, Whitworth’s Katie Staudinger, Justine Hays and Taryn Smith were victorious over Brooks, Starr and Ham.

PLU started doubles play off with a victory when Feltus and Coats defeated Lexy Harrington and Linh Aven 8-4. But Whitworth managed to pull a series of games their way in order to get the last two victories in the defeat of PLU’s No. 2 and 3 teams.

The Lutes came into the tournament as the No. 6 seed and faced their third opponent when they met up with Whitman Saturday. The Missionaries defeated PLU 6-3.

Whitman arrived in the tournament as the No. 4 seed and faced a good opponent in PLU. Singles competition was, once again for the Lutes, tied up with a score of 3-3.

Currey came back to defeat Hadley DeBree 5-7, 6-0, 6-1 in the No. 2 spot. PLU didn’t find their two other singles victories until Starr won 7-5, 6-1 in the No. 5 slot and No. 6 Ham was victorious over Jacquie Frank 6-2, 6-0.

Whitman ended up getting the better of the Lutes in doubles competition winning all three of the matches.

After the tournament, Feltus was named to the First Team All-Northwest Conference. She was the only one from her team to be on the first or second team. This is the third year in a row that Feltus has been awarded this achievement.

The final loss put PLU to 10-12 on the season (7-9 NWC) with interim head coach Lorrie Wood. Feltus said Wood did a wonderful job filling the position.

“Usually when you get a new coach, typically a team goes into a downward slope during the season,” Feltus said. “But I still think we played really well even though she was a new coach, so I think that’s saying something about her coaching abilities and her knowledge of the sport.”
Both four-year letter winners, Feltus and Currey, said their farewells, as they will graduate this spring.

Photo Courtesy of Nick Dawson

Sophomore Ashley Brooks goes for a forehand against Whitworth’s Justine Hays at the PLU tennis courts April 5. Brooks won this match 2-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-6). The Lutes lost to Whitworth at home and again at the NWC tournament 6-3.