Box Score KINGSVILLE, Texas – A hard-fought Lone Star Conference women's tennis match came down to the wire on Friday at the Javelina Tennis Courts, as No. 34 Texas A&M-Kingsville got a crucial rally from junior
Victoria Romanovskaia (Simferopol, Crimea, Russia) in the final set against No. 15 Tarleton's Faustine Palatte at the fourth singles flight to secure a 4-3 victory in the second weekend of conference play for the hosts.
Romanovskaia battled back from a narrow 7-6 defeat in the first set with a commanding 6-1 win in the second, and faced an uphill battle as Pallate took the first three points of the final set.
The Simferopol School product took the next two points before her opponent owned two of the next three for a 5-3 advantage. However, it was Romanovskaia who won out as she claimed the final four points for a 7-5 win, securing the conference victory for the Javelinas (8-4, 2-0 LSC) over the TexAnns (8-5, 2-2 LSC) at 4-3.
"Several of my girls have been through situations like that before," said head coach
Autumn Williams, "and I think what carried us through was experience. Something we've talked about all season long was being reliable and we needed everybody to be reliable.
"Everybody was exactly that today and it brought us through this match."
The back-and-forth affair started back in the doubles portion as TSU took the first matchup at the second tandem with Palatte and Sherine Salem, but the 31st-ranked duo of redshirt senior
Lisa Carvajal (McAllen, Texas) and freshman
Maya Donkor (McLean, Va.) turned the tide with a 6-3 win at the top spot over Alicia Barbaroux and Neetika Sud.
Senior
Phonephathep Philavong (Vientiane, Laos) teamed up with Romanovskaia in the third pairing and secured the critical doubles point for TAMUK with a 6-3 win over Shelby Fillingame and Nathalie Ulander.
The first singles matchup to finish went in favor of the TexAnns as Salem defeated sophomore
Laura Montalvo (Cochabamba, Bolivia) in straight sets, 6-2, 6-0, but junior
Valerie Ruiz (San Antonio, Texas) kept the hosts ahead as she returned to her winning ways with a straight-set win of her own over Ulander in the fifth flight at 6-2, 6-3.
Classmate
Julia Rauer (Leiselheim, Germany) kept the cushion for the Javelinas after she turned in a 6-2, 6-2 win over Fillingame at the sixth matchup, while TSU added its second team point in the second flight with Sud taking a win over Philavong in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2.
The top flight set the stage for Romanovskaia's comeback as Barbaroux came away with a three-set win over Carvajal. Carvajal took the first set at 6-2 before Barbaroux took the final two at 6-0, 6-3.
To see the complete results, click
here.
TAMUK will take the next several days off before returning to action at the Javelina Tennis Courts on Saturday, April 6, for an LSC mathcup against No. 18 Angelo State, before taking on UT Permian Basin on Sunday, April 7.
To keep up-to-date with Javelina tennis, follow the program on Facebook at /JavelinaSports or on Twitter @JavelinaTennis
######
