KINGSVILLE, Texas – The Texas A&M-Kingsville women's tennis program is off on a strong start to the 2019 spring season and will look to maintain momentum with matches against Prairie View A&M and future Lone Star Conference foe UT Tyler over the weekend.

Both matches will be played in Prairie View, Texas, with the Javelinas taking on the Panthers on February 16 at 4 p.m. before facing off against the Patriots on February 17 starting at noon.

TAMUK opened the season with a dominant 7-0 showing in the new scoring format over Laredo CC on February 1. Head coach Autumn Williams and her squad opened the contest with a perfect sweep of the doubles portion, as junior Valerie Ruiz (San Antonio, Texas) and newcomer Loren Tristan (Corpus Christi, Texas) bested the Palomino pair of Priscilla Morales and Evelyn Hernandez by a count of 6-0 to start the match.

Ruiz ended up securing the first team win in singles play as she took down Morales in a perfect 6-0, 6-0 two-set sweep for the fourth team point, paving the way for the shutout.

Just two days later, Ruiz and Tristan once again started the match strong against Harding with a 6-1 win over the Bisons' duo of Emily Carpenter and Allison Carpenter.

The match went down to the wire as sophomore Laura Montalvo (Cochabamba, Bolivia) provided the exclamation point with a thrilling back-and-forth battle with Hana Folse. Montalvo took the first set at 6-1 before Folse evened the flight at one set apiece following a 6-3 final.

Montalvo eventually proved victorious in the end as she took a 10-8 final in the third set to push the Javelinas over the top at 4-2 for an unblemished start to the year.

PVAMU is looking for its first win of the year after starting 0-9. Recently, the Panthers fell to New Orleans at 7-0 and haven't recorded a team point in their last seven matches with a 6-1 loss to Baylor serving as the lone outlier.

UTT, meanwhile, fell to Tarleton to start the year but rebounded with a 5-3 over UT Permian Basin for the first win of 2019.

To keep up-to-date with Javelina tennis, follow the program on Facebook at /JavelinaSports or on Twitter @JavelinaTennis

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