Women's Tennis News
Women capture fifth place at SCAC tournament
The women's tennis team captured 5 th place in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) tournament in Little Rock, AR the weekend of April 24-26 . The tournament was a three day grueling team match tournament with four nationally ranked teams participating. With temperatures hovering around 90 degrees, players were pushed to their limits. On the opening day of the tournament the ladies were matched up with a strong Rhodes College team which had defeated them earlier in the year 8-1. The Colonels fell behind 2-1 after the doubles as Whitney Fraley and Meredith Mayfield won at #1 doubles 8-6, but the Colonels were unable to pull out victories at #2 or #3 doubles. Karolyn Hays and Lizzy Jones were both able to win exciting 3 rd set tie-breakers in singles, but that was not enough as the ladies fell to Rhodes 6-3.
On Saturday the ladies faced Hendrix College and an opportunity to play for a spot in the top half of the conference. Hendrix's line-up contained two highly ranked players at the top which put a lot of pressure on the bottom half of the line-up for Centre. Karolyn Hays and Melissa Springer pulled out a close doubles win at #2, 8-6 and Lizzy Jones and Sarah Swauger cruised at #3 doubles 8-0 to give the Colonels a 2-1 lead. The colonels grabbed the win with decisive wins at 3-6 singles as Hays, Katy Bender, Jones and Swauger all controlled their matches.
Sunday's match-up had the Colonels match-up with Colorado College and a shot at the 5 th place finish. Again the Colonels grabbed a 2-1 lead after doubles with Karolyn Hays and Melissa Springer winning at #2 8-3 and Lizzy Jones and Sarah Swauger squeaking out a 8-5 win at #3. Colorado followed up with wins at #1 and #4 singles to take a 3-2 lead before Karolyn Hays tied up the match with her third singles win of the weekend at #3. Meredith Mayfield then pulled out a 2 nd set tie-breaker at #2 singles to put Centre back on top 4-3. Both Lizzy Jones and Sarah Swauger were locked up in tight third set matches with the team match still on the line. Sarah Swauger finally put the match away with a win at #6 singles. Lizzy Jones's win at #5 was her third singles win of the weekend also and accounted for the final 6-3 score for Centre.
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