Women's tennis shuts down A&M

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by Jackee Brown

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The women's tennis team won two matches this weekend.

Last Friday, the women competed against Northeast Louisiana State University. The women defeated the NLSU team 5-4.

The big win of the weekend however, came on Sunday when the women defeated Texas A&M University by a score of 5-4 in their Southwest Conference dual match against the Aggies.

The match was a hard fought victory for the Owls. "A&M didn't lose the match, we went out and won it," Head Coach Paul Blankenship said.

At the number-one singles position, senior Paula Myslivecek was defeated by the Aggies' Nancy Dingwald 6-4, 4-6, 5-7. Rice's number-two player, junior Jessica Gagnon, was victorious over Vanessa Rooks, 6-4, 6-3.

Freshman Jennifer Velasco had a close loss to Lonna Logan of A&M. Velasco lost the first set 6-0 before coming back in the second set to tie the score 6-6 after being down 4-1. Velasco eventually lost the second set 7-6 in the tie-breaker.

At number four, Wilson Pate of the Aggies defeated Vessie Ivanova 6-2, 6-1. Erin Talton, a sophmore playing in the number-five spot, won over Monica Rebolledo 6-3, 6-1. Rebolledo won the SWC tournament last year at the number-four singles position.

Assistant Coach Emily Schaeffer was very pleased with Talton's performance.

"This was the highlight of Erin's career. She really played," she said.

Olga Limon played her first match of the spring season after recovering from a shoulder injury.

Playing at the number-six spot, she defeated Julie Beahm 7-6, 4-6, 6-4. Beahm had also won the conference title at number six last year.

Limon was very happy with the performance. "We really had to earn it. We went out there determined to play well," she said.

The score was tied 3-3 after the singles competition.

"It was really nice for our number-five and -six players to have wins over A&M players who had won the conference at their positions," Blankenship said.

The doubles competition was just as exciting as the singles.

Playing number-one doubles, Limon and Ivanova were defeated in three sets by Wilson Pate and Nancy Dingwald.

Pate and Dingwald are ranked 29th in the nation.

At the number-two slot, Gagnon and Myslivecek competed against Logan and Anna Strakasova. Myslivecek and Gagnon were victorious by a score of 6-3, 7-6.

This win tied the match at 4-4. The outcome of the match came down to the number-three doubles.

Talton and Velasco won the first set against Julie Beahm and Vanessa Rooks. Rooks and Beahm took the second set 6-3. In the final set, Talton and Velasco fought hard to win 7-5. This sealed Rice's victory over A&M.

"It was really impressive for a sophmore and freshman to pull out the final match in doubles, and it was nice to beat A&M in the last dual match against them," Schaeffer said.

The women's team will next compete against Vanderbilt University on March 3 at the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium.

The Owls will then travel to the Sunshine State over spring break. They will compete against the University of South Florida and Florida State University.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the March 1, 1996 issue.

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