April 11, 2010
Final Stats
NORMAL, Ill. -
Sophomores Hannah Esker and Aniko Kiss contributed two victories for the Illinois State women's tennis team but it wasn't enough as the Redbirds fell to #68 Wichita State, 5-2, on Sunday at the Gregory Street Tennis Courts. Wichita State snapped the Redbird's four-match winning streak in conference play to put Illinois State at a 4-1 Valley record and a 14-5 record on the year.
Illinois State dropped the early doubles point with the only victory coming from the No. 3 court where Esker and Carmen Peters had an 8-3 victory over Lily Wakim and Delia Damaschin. The Redbird pair sports a 12-4 dual doubles record.
"(Sunday) was a four-hour match which took them awhile to beat us," said head coach Chris Hoover. "We couldn't come up with a win. If we would've won with Natalia and Ariane's doubles match it would've changed things but I'm happy to see Carmen and Hannah get a win. We let that slip away. All in all, the student athletes fought hard (Sunday)."
Esker collected her fourteenth singles victory of the season with a 6-1, 6-1, defeat over Wakim at the No. 6 singles position. The Redbird continues on a ten-match winning streak and holds a 14-3 dual singles record.
Kiss faced Stephanie Dalmacio at the No. 2 singles position and won the first set, 6-3. Dalmacio battled back to win the second set, 6-2. In the tiebreaker, Kiss came back strong to defeat Dalmacio with a 6-4 win in the third set.
"We need to take care of business next weekend," said Hoover. "Hopefully we can close out the regular season in second place and fight our way into the tournament and get another look at (Wichita State)."
The Illinois State women's tennis team will wrap up conference play when they head to Iowa to face Northern Iowa on April 17 and Drake on April 18.
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