Bowling Green’s women’s tennis team’s season ended Friday with a 4-0 loss to No. 2 seed Western Michigan in the Mid-American Conference women’s tennis championships in Rockford, Ill.
The Falcons had posted a 4-0 win over Akron in Thursday’s first-round match, dominating the tenth-seeded Zips.
“I think we went into the tournament with a good attitude even though we had a losing streak going and played real well,” BG coach Penny Dean said. “We had a good practice, and we went to the match ready because we could have taken them lightly.”
In the next match, the Broncos were too strong for Bowling Green, winning the first two doubles matches and taking the first three singles matches to end the match early.
Tournament rules call for play to stop once a team has clinched four points in the match.
“With the Western Michigan match we did some good things,” Dean said. “We believed in ourselves and we tested them, but unfortunately we lost.”
Dean’s players agreed that the match was a better effort than their 7-0 loss earlier in the regular season.
“Even though we lost to Western, we felt really good about the tournament,” captain Lisa Maloney said. “We went out there and there were a lot of close matches and since the matches stop, we had a few people out there who were most likely going to pull out victories. We were happy with that because when we played them during the regular season, we didn’t have the close matches like we did at the Championships.”
The Falcons ended their up-and-down season with a 10-14 dual match record. Western moved on to face No. 3 Eastern Michigan in the semifinals, but the Eagles pulled the upset, winning 4-3. Eastern and Marshall met in the MAC Championship, with Marshall winning, 4-1, for the Thundering Herd’s third straight MAC Championship.
The Falcons had hoped to pull an upset over Western after a strong performance against Akron, but started out the match losing the crucial doubles point.
“We were just going out there ready [against Akron],” Maloney said. “We had a very good warmup in the morning before our match and we had a very good practice the day before. We were just ready to show them what we were made of. We knew we had the edge over them but we wanted to show them right away by getting the doubles point.”
Though the Falcons took the doubles point against Akron, Western started too strong for BG.
Lisa Maloney and Susie Schoenberger fell to Frederika Girsang and Valeria Stoilova, 8-3, while Western’s Malena Remynse and Rattiya Hiranrat defeated Ashley Jakupcin and Heidi Romer, 8-1 at No. 2 doubles. The Falcons’ No. 3 team of Gaby Coello and Andrea Meister was trailing Western’s Carrie Jeanmaire and Reedhina Parekh, 7-3 when the match was stopped.
Western locked up the victory with three straight singles wins. The Broncos were leading the three other singles matches when play was halted.
Girsang, named All-MAC first team last week, defeated Maloney, 6-3, 6-1 at the top flight. Hiranrat beat Romer, 6-1, 6-2 at the fifth flight and Remynse sealed the win with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Cameron Benjamin at No. 6 singles. Schoenberger, Coello and Jakupcin were still playing when Western clinched the match. Maloney said she will miss BG.
“It was great at BG, and I’m very happy that I had the opportunity to play here,” Maloney said. “I had a good time, a great coach, a great team, great players and great friendships. It’s kind of sad to be done but there’s always a time to move on, and now is my time to move on.”
