The storyline for much of the year, from sport to sport, has been Toledo taking the battle of I-75.
Friday afternoon the Toledo women’s tennis team faced off with the BG women’s tennis team and the storyline stayed the same.
Even with the 7-0 final score line in favor of the Rockets, the competitiveness was there that could have swung things the other way.
“I don’t think the score indicated what kind of match we had,” said BGSU head coach Olga Elkin. “We were very competitive today. We were very close to taking the doubles point, the singles matches at [flights] one and four and we weren’t far off at two.”
“They did a great job today. They were very competitive, they fought, and they played as well as they could,” she added.
The second doubles flight began the day for the Rockets, as the duo of Emily Mazzola and Lexy Pitt took on the Falcon duo of Brittany Plaszewski and Emily Witt. The UT duo won the first two games on their way to a 4-1 lead. The Falcon tandem went on to win the next game but lost the match 6-2.
The other doubles match saw the BG walk-on duo of Antonina Farrar and Sydney Seeley take things to the wire against UT’s Katelyn Nguyen and Kayleigh Hall. The Falcon duo took leads of 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3, but those multiple leads gave way as the Rocket duo came back each time.
Farrar and Seeley came back to tie things at 5-5, but once again, Nguyen and Hall came back, this time taking the match 7-5.
“Nina and Sydney have shown so much improvement since they joined us in early January,” said Elkin. “It’s night and day. Their energy and attitudes were amazing today. They played great, and they almost pulled out that doubles match. We can see their hard work starting to pay off, which is great.”
With the doubles point in hand, the first flight match was halted to move on to singles action.
At flight one Megan Miller faced off with UT’s Pia Rygh. The opening set was a strong one by the Rocket senior as she took the set 6-0. Miller would come back to take the second set 6-4.
This forced a third set and early in that set Miller took the lead. However, Rygh stormed back to win the set 6-2 and the flight.
The rest of the Falcons in action fell as well. In the second flight Harley Hutchinson lost 6-4, 6-4 to Pitt, Emily Witt was defeated by Sidnay Huck 6-3, 6-3, Farrar was defeated by Mackenzie Bowman 6-2, 6-0, Seeley was defeated by Lauren Thai 6-0, 6-2 and Plaszewski battled to a third set tiebreak with Mazzola but lost 6-1, 5-7, 1-0 (10-8).
“We’ve definitely taken huge strides since the beginning of the year,” said Elkin. “All the hard work is paying off, and it is starting to come together. That’s something that is great to see, and that’s something we are able to take into the last few weeks of this season.”
