Saturday, March 30th, after a successful first conference match of the season, the cowgirls looked ahead to their next conference match the next day against the Air Force Academy falcons.
From the get go, the cowgirls had their work cut out for them. The falcons, ranked 71st in the country with a season record of 19-1, had a tough lineup to go up against. Although having a decisive win in the day before, the cowgirls would go on to falter under the falcons.
Just only the day before, Elisa Koonik and Tessa van Der Ploeg had dominated their doubles against the lobos with a 6-0 win. However, as the doubles started, it was clear that the falcons TJ Fumagalli/Kristen Kerrigan duo would give the same treatment the two cowgirls gave the lobos. In the No.1 doubles, the falcons duo swept the cowgirls 6-0 in a short amount of time, the first of two wins that would give the falcons the early point.
The Falcons daunting early lead, however, did not diminish the cowgirls determination. Junior Ana Royo displayed true persistence in the No. 4 singles by forcing a tiebreaker on the first set. Despite losing the tiebreaker and the following set 6-4, Royo made it difficult for her opponent to fully take the lead by constantly closing the gap.
At the very beginning of the No.2 singles, senior Elisa Koonik seemed to be struggling like she had the day before. Her opponent, Elizabeth Barnickel, jumped at the opportunity to win the first set readily 2-6. That early lead from Barnickel, however, was quickly met with an answer of a dominate 6-1 set win by koonik. At this point, there was no sign of struggle as Koonik wrapped up her match with an impressive set win of 6-3.
The victory was soon followed by freshman Maria Oreshkina outstanding performance that gave the cowgirls the chance to tie the falcons at 2-2. The freshman, coming off a singles win the day before, had another great match against yet another tough opponent.
Van Der Ploeg had a difficult No.1 singles match that kept the crowd on the edge of their seats yet again after yesterday. Unlike the day before, after a very strong effort to keep up with her opponent, the senior dropped her first set 5-7. Although Van Der Ploeg was able to pull off a 7-5 set win afterwards, it was clear that the last set was going to
rocky. Her opponent, TJ Fumagalli, took advantage of an exhausted Van Der Ploeg to win five out of the first six games. Only after the sixth game, the senior pulled herself together to win the next two games. It showed a lot of pure hard determination on her part to be able to get two more wins after coming from behind 1-5. In the end, Fumagalli pulled ahead, winning the last set 6-3.
This gave the falcons a 3-2 advantage, and was shortly followed by two more falcon wins to wrap the match. The falcons went on to improve their record to 20-1 with their first conference win of the season.
The cowgirls look to win their second conference win next Friday, April 12th in Logan, Utah against Utah State.
