Tampa Tennis Comes Up Short Against No. 10 LCU
Tampa, Fla- The University of Tampa's Women's Tennis program was back on the court for the third time in five days. The Spartans played host to No. 10 ranked Lubbock Christian, the seventh ranked team Tampa has faced. Despite Lubbock controlling the majority of this match, there were a lot of positives the Spartans can take into their next contest.
Final: Lubbock Christian Buffs 6, University of Tampa Spartans 1,
Location: Naimoli and Young Tennis Complex | Tampa, Fla.
Records: Tampa (2-8), Lubbock Christian (10-3)
History: This was the first ever meeting between these two programs, Lubbock Christian leads the series 1-0.
How it Happened:
The match started out with doubles play with both sides knowing how important this first point would be. Tampa started out well on all courts, holding within a set point on all courts through the first five serves. Nicole Cierniak put up the best fight of the three courts as she held a 4-3 lead over her opponent before falling 7-5 in an extra set. Lubbock would run away with the other two courts to sweep doubles play and take a 1-0 lead into singles play. Unfortunately for the Spartans, singles were not much different then doubles with Lubbock controlling the pace on nearly each court. While the Spartans battled, LCU was able to take all but one single court for the match win . Four Spartans were within three points of their LCU counterparts and Nicole Cierniak took her opponent to a 10th extra set. L. Eriksson Sundling picked up the lone win in singles play for the Spartans, beating her opponent 6-4, 6-2 in straight sets. Despite the match loss, Tampa has started to challenge these top ranked teams and prove to themselves that they can hang with the best in the country.
Doubles Results: 3-0 LCU
Singles Results: 5-1 LCU
UP NEXT: Tampa's Tennis program will wrap up the month of March with a trip to South Florida on Tuesday. The Spartans will face Keiser University at 2:00pm on the 25th before starting a run of SSC matches in April.