HAMMOND, La. – The Southeastern Louisiana University women's tennis team continued its hot streak with a 4-1 nonconference win over Southern Miss Friday afternoon at the Southeastern Tennis Complex.
The Lions (6-1) extended their winning streak to five matches with Friday's triumph. Southern Miss, which came to Hammond boasting wins over SLU's Southland Conference rivals Northwestern State and New Orleans, fell to 3-2 overall.
"We've been working so hard, so it was a really big step for our team to find a way to win against a high-caliber Southern Miss team," Southeastern head coach
Jason Hayes said. "We were able to set the tone in doubles and that carried over into singles play. This is the type of win we needed to build our confidence heading into conference play.
USM picked up a win on the No. 3 doubles court, but SLU answered with wins on the other two courts to take a 1-0 lead. On court 2, the Lion duo of
Aitana Darder and
Leana Gomez (4-3) cruised to a 6-1 victory over USM's Jordan Parker and Talia Wunnenberg.
The doubles point came down to the feature court. SLU's top pair of
Bente Bierma and
Panatchakorn Suanarsa outlasted Southern Miss' Hannah Chambers and Malannia Vashkevich, 7-5, to give the Lions the early advantage.
Darder (5-1) won her fourth straight singles match on court 5. The freshman's 6-1, 6-1 win over Wunnenberg put SLU ahead, 2-0. USM answered with a straight-set win on No. 3 to cut the SLU lead to 2-1.
On court 6, SLU's
Taisia Bolsova (5-2) handled Gagana Mohan Kumar, 6-4, 6-3, to extend the Southeastern lead to 3-1. Moments later, Suanarsa (5-2) overcame a 5-2 deficit in the second set to complete a 6-2, 7-5 win over Parker on court 4 to secure the 4-1 victory. Gomez and Bierma were both up a set on the top two courts when the match was decided.
Southeastern will close out the pre-Southland Conference portion of its 2024-25 schedule Tuesday, when it travels to Southern for a 2 p.m. match in Baton Rouge.
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 X and Instagram and like /lionupathletics on Facebook.
