The Sam Houston State University tennis team fell to both the Southeastern Louisiana Lions and the New Orleans Privateers over the weekend in the team’s Southland Conference opener at the McAdams Tennis Center.
After the match against the SLU Lions on Saturday, the Bearkats went on to play the NO Privateers on Sunday where they were defeated 5-2.
Sophomore Mila Milanovic and senior Maddie Mortimore were the only Bearkats to come out victorious in the singles competition against the 4-1 Privateers.
Milanovic topped senior Hafsa Laraibi 7-6 (7-1), 3-6 and 1-0 (10-7) after a set of tiebreakers and secured fifth place. Mortimore took sixth place after the senior defeated junior Yasmine Rashad 6-2 and 6-2 in a straight match.
In the doubles competition, freshman Ema Barkovic and Sophomore Caitlyn Mitchell secured third place after the duo topped Laraibi and Rashad 6-3.
Sophomore Carrie Casey and Milanovic fell to freshman Trang Dao and sophomore Anja Luethi 7-5, while sophomores Fabienne Gettward and Yen Wee were defeated 6-3 by senior Soledad Calderon and junior Anna Segarra.
“We have good depth to our line up and everyone has the ability to beat anyone in our conference,” Mortimore said. “Now, we will all go back to the practice court and tweak aspects of our games.”
The Bearkats went into conference play with their best start since 2012 after five of their eight non-conference matches were wins. They fell short in the match against the SLU Lions on Saturday where the team was defeated 4-3.
In the singles competition, Barkovic defeated sophomore Dany Raygadas in a pair of tiebreakers 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-3) which secured the freshman third place.
In fifth place, Milanovic topped sophomore Ceci Mercier in a three game set 5-7, 6-1 and 6-3 while Mortimore took sixth place after she downed sophomore Madina Vorotnikova 6-1 and 6-3 in a straight set.
The Bearkats were defeated in all three singles matches against SLU on Saturday.
Casey and Milanovic were downed by sophomore Dalina Dahlmans and senior Renee Villarreal 6-3. Gettwart and Khee Yen Wee were defeated 7-5 by sophomore Lucia Bustamante and Mercier.
Mitchell and Gettwart were topped 6-2 by junior Margaux Kaltenbacher and Raygadas.
“We showed a great fight during this weekend’s matches and showed that we are able to compete with top schools in the conference,” Mortimore said. “I was very happy with how I performed and I was able to execute what I’ve been working on in practice.”
The Bearkats have a combined dual match singles record of 37-23 and a doubles match record of 10-18.
Individually, Mortimore is 9-1, Milanovic is 7-3 and Barkovic is 6-4. Both Casey and Gettwart hold a record of 5-5, while Mitchell is 3-3 and Yen Wee is 2-2.
Overall the Bearkats are 5-5 with a SLC record of 0-2.
The Bearkats will continue with conference play as the team travels to Thibodaux, Louisiana to face off with Nicholls State University on Friday and McNeese State on Saturday.