DENISON, Texas – The second-seeded Southwestern University Pirates women's tennis team opened the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Championships with a 5-0 first-round victory over the fifth-seeded Centenary Ladies.
Southwestern swept through doubles to open the match, with Mary Cardone and Stephanie Bartusov shutting out London Todd and Shyann Pisano 8-0 in the No. 2 spot and the teams of Esther Bowers and Mariana Quetzeri and Nina Elez and Sara Le carrying 8-1 victories in the No. 1 and 3 spots.
"It was great to get the first match jitters out, especially in tricky conditions," Head Coach Billy Porter said. "I thought the girls handled it well."
With a 3-0 lead heading into singles, the Pirates worked quickly to end the match, getting a pair of straight set victories in the No. 4 and 6 positions to clinch. Chandler Vrba finished her match with Taylor Morgan first in the sixth spot. Le clinched it with a pair of 6-0 sets, ending the other four in-progress matches.
"Sara got us the clinch playing much better in singles than doubles," Porter said. "She had a mental lapse but challenged herself after doubles and responded exactly the way we wanted her to."
Elez, Cecile Wilde, Meeshti Shethia, and Bartusov each won their first sets 6-0 and were leading the second when the match clinched.
"Cece dide a great job of being coachable," Porter said of Wilde, who led 1-0 in the second set when the match ended. "She came out trying to do too much early then elevated her game once she settled down."
With the win, the Pirates improve to 17-2 this season. Southwestern will play third-seeded Austin College tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.