Andrea Jameson
Contributing Writer
After a heated match against Middle Tennessee at the Kenlake Tennis Center on Sunday, Feb. 21, Murray State tennis finished its singles matches with one winner and won its doubles but lost overall to the Blue Raiders 5-2.
Senior Stasya Sharapova and freshman Gabrielle Geolier ended their doubles set with a 6-3 victory, gaining the victory of one of the two doubles matches the Racers won to get the doubles point.
Head Coach Jorge Caetano said he was proud of the girls when it came to doubles because they spend a lot of time practicing for the matches.
“Gabrielle and Stasya started really strong and never let the opponents get back in the game, which was huge for these girls,” Caetano said.“ Merit and Samantha were down by 4-3 and able to fight their way back and won by 6-4, which was huge for us to get the doubles point. They really trust everything that we’ve been working for. They stuck with the plan and it really paid off.”
Another doubles victory included sophomores Merit Kreugal and Samantha Muller finishing with a score of 6-4.
“We have never played a match with this new line of girls playing together in doubles,” Caetano said. “All three teams were different so it was good to see them all clicking together because they were all very aggressive.”
With the singles, freshman Sarah Bureau won both sets with scores of 6-2.
“I think we competed really well given the circumstances. We had to stop practice for a week and then we had the snow for another week, Caetano said. “We literally only had a few practices going to this match and so the girls handled it really well.”
Caetano said while the Racers left some room for improvement against the Blue Raiders, he was pleased with the way they competed.
“We left it all out there and really pushed Middle Tennessee,” Caetano said. “You could see a little bit of our rust in both the matches and singles play. We’ve played only our fourth match of the season compared to the other team where they have played their twelfth match. It wasn’t the result we were expecting but we knew we were competing against a really good team.”
The next match will be on Saturday, Feb. 27, at 12 p.m. in Birmingham, Alabama, against the University of Alabama.
“It is going to be very similar to Middle Tennessee because they are in a very similar level,” Caetano said. “We are going to have our hands full, we know that but the good thing is that we are going to have our first full week where we can practice outside and we are hoping to play outside there. This week we are really going to build our tolerance of handling long points better. We are really excited about it because we know it is going to be tough, but we will get our rhythm back.”
