NIU women’s tennis improved to 12-3 on the season after taking a 5-2 battle with the Marquette University Golden Eagles (3-10).
“It was a great win,” said NIU women’s tennis head coach Eric Burns. “Marquette played a really strong match tonight and really made us work for everything. We did a nice job of weathering the storm and coming through with the win.”
Junior Isabella Righi and freshman Lucia Yecora rolled through a 6-1 set to defeat Marquette freshman Aiyana Abbott and junior Emma Davis.
Huskie duo junior Jenna Horne and senior Reagan Welch took a 6-3 set against freshman Joelle Fiallo Schad and freshman Elena Duva to clinch the doubles point for NIU.
NIU senior Maria Dzemeskevich and junior Nataly Ninova were up in a 5-3 battle against Golden Eagles graduate student Andie Weise and sophomore Tiera Jarmond when the match was unfinished.
In the No. 1 singles spot, Dzemeshkevich took 7-5, 6-2 sets against Jarmond.
Huskie freshman Irmak Budak, the reigning Mid-American Conference Singles Player of the Week, bested Weise in a three-set battle. After dropping a 6-2 first set, Budak came back in 6-4, 6-1 sets for the win.
“She had a tough match today,” said Burns on Budak’s performance. “The girl she played at No. 2 singles was a fifth-year senior, kind of a big serve and deceptive game. That’s the type of player she’s not used to seeing and she stepped up and was able to pull through even when the girl was serving really well. She’s always been a good player but she’s gotten a lot stronger in general and I think that’s really helped her game a lot.”
Yecora continued her dominance after earning her first loss on Saturday against Cornell, winning 6-0, 6-3 sets in her match against Abbott.
After conceding a 6-2 first set, Ninova took 7-5, 6-1 sets for the victory against Davis.
Both losses for the Huskies came in tiebreakers, freshman Theodora Kousiou and Righi falling at the No. 5 and No. 6 singles spots respectively.
Righi fell in a back-and-forth match with Golden Eagles freshman Luciana Mendoza. Righi took the first set 6-2 before a long second set ended with a 7-6 (10-8) victory for Mendoza.
After a 4-6 first set loss, Kousiou controlled a 6-2 second set against Fiallo Schad to even the score before falling 10-7 in the tiebreaker.
UP NEXT
The Huskies take on their first MAC opponent, Eastern Michigan University, at 1 p.m. March 16 at Nelson Tennis Center at Chick Evans Field House before taking on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater at 5 p.m. the same day.
“We’re excited to get MAC play going,” Burns said. “We’ve been working hard all year to try and lead up to that. We’ve gotten ourselves in a good position, sitting here 12-3 with loads of confidence heading in. Coming off of two matches that really pushed us like conference matches would, so we got some good practice and some good preparation for what’s ahead.”
