The Illinois State womens tennis team walks away from this weekends Missouri Valley Conference Individual Championships with a school-record seven titles.
Illinois States No. 1 player, freshman Liina Suurvarik controlled her match against Drakes Rajasree Kuruvilla for a 6-2, 6-2 victory. Alesia Mikalayeva, a native of Minsk, Belarus, won her match at No. 2 over Erica Ochoa from Southern Illinois 6-3, 6-4.
Brigette Zarazee captured her second career singles title with a three set win over Northern Iowas Carrie Amsbaugh (6-4, 5-7, 6-0) at No. 5. Sophomore Shelby Lipson earned her first Valley crown after cruising to a 6-2, 6-1 victory at No. 6 over Indiana States Laura Whitney (6-2, 6-1). Alana Hoffman triumphed over M. Lasecki, also of Indiana State, in straight sets (6-0, 6-0) at No. 7 to earn her first-ever title.
The doubles teams all faced fierce competition for the Drake teams, with two of three teams bettering the Bulldogs to add to the Redbird title tally.
The No. 2 duo of Zana Friganovic and Hoffman defeated Mainil/de Bruyn (8-5) for Hoffmans second title of the day and Friganovics third doubles championship of her career. The No. 3 team of Zarazee and Lipson earned their second titles of the tournament by edging Saluri/Fenimore (9-7) to move their record to 10-1 on the season.
The two wins this weekend doubled Zarazees career total, giving her four conference individual championships, the most by any womens tennis player at Illinois State.
Were pretty pleased. Its hard to come out of a tournament losing three matches all weekend and be disappointed, head coach Chris Hoover said. One of our goals at the beginning of the season was to have everyone win an individual conference title. I feel sorry for Zana, who has never won a singles title, and Elizabeth (Bingier) who lost her singles match and didnt get to play doubles for a chance to get one there.
The Birds are off until Nov. 2-5 when they travel to the ITA Midwest Regionals hosted by the University of Michigan.
