HAMMOND, La. – Putri Insani,
Gabrielle Dekkers,
Kate Oborina and
Flory Bierma all earned singles victories to key a hard-fought 4-3 victory for the Southeastern Louisiana University women's tennis team over NJIT Saturday afternoon at the Southeastern Tennis Complex.
SLU improved to 6-5 overall with the victory, bouncing back after dropping the doubles point. NJIT, an affiliate Southland Conference member, fell to 6-6 overall.
"I can't say enough about the heart of this team," Southeastern head coach
Jason Hayes said. "NJIT is a very good team and we were able to just keep fighting."
Doubles play was all NJIT. The Highlanders won on the top two doubles courts to take a 1-0 lead.
An injury suffered in the doubles round forced NJIT to pull Shivani Ingle from the singles lineup. As a result, Bierma earned a default win on No. 6 to even the match at 1-1.
NJIT retook the lead with a straight-set victory on court 5. SLU answered right back, as Dekkers (6-2) won her fifth straight match, defeating Laura Wipfli, 6-3, 6-3 on No. 2.
SLU took its first lead when Oborina shook off a tough first set for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 win over Irene Cocero on the No. 4 singles court. NJIT tied it back up on No. 3, as Shalom Salvi handled SLU's
Carla Del Barrio, 6-3, 5-7, 6-0.
It all came down to the feature singles court. Insani (8-1) and NJIT's Sandra Dzhambazov split a pair of tiebreakers in the opening two sets. The Lion senior from Jakarta, Indonesia took over in the third set and clinched the SLU win with a 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-4), 6-0 victory.
Southeastern will officially open Southland Conference play Friday, when it travels to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for a 1 p.m. match.
40 LOVE CLUB
All membership fees and donations to both the 40 Love Club and S Club (tennis) are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern tennis program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting www.LionUp.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Southeastern Tennis, follow @LionUpTennis on Twitter, like /SLUathletics on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.
