KINGSVILLE, Texas – The Texas A&M-Kingsville women's tennis program is back on the road this week for three matches in Lone Star Conference play.
The Javelinas square off with Midwestern State on Thursday, April 8, in Wichita Falls, Texas, before heading over to Dallas on Saturday, April 10, to take on DBU. The final matchup takes the Blue and Gold out to Odessa, Texas, for a makeup contest against UT Permian Basin on Sunday, April 11.
TAMUK dropped its first two league matches last week with 6-1 losses to both St. Mary's and No. 11 Angelo State. Freshman Milou ter Morsche (Goor, Netherlands) was the lone holdout in each contest as she bested StMU's Elena Munoz and ASU's Virginie Becht in the fifth singles flight.
Ter Morsche took the first set against Munoz, 7-5, before the Rattler took the super-tiebreaker in the second set, and came back in the third set at 10-8 for the win. The newcomer from across the pond added a straight-set victory over Becht a few days later by taking the super-tiebreaker in the second set.
On the year, ter Morsche is 4-5 in the dual season with a 4-4 record at the fifth spot in the singles lineup. Just ahead of her is junior Laura Montalvo (Cochabamba, Bolivia) with a 5-3 mark, including a 5-1 record in the third singles flight. Sophomore Maya Donkor (McLean, Va.) and freshman Raina Zaffar (Guwahati, India) are the other two Javelinas with three wins, as Donkor has picked up her three in the second flight while Zaffar has locked down the fourth position.
Doubles play features a 3-5 record for Donkor and Montalvo at the top flight, followed by Zaffar and fellow newcomer Alessa Maier (Hechingen, Germany) as the second tandem with two wins. Ter Morsche and classmate Jana Knaab (Stuttgart, Germany) round out the duos in the third spot with two wins.
MSU Texas owns a win in four of its last five matches with the lone loss coming to No. 5 Central Oklahoma on March 31. The Mustangs are currently 5-0 in LSC play, with wins over DBU, Cameron, UAFS, UT Permian Basin and Western New Mexico and only three team points allowed over that span.
Tiffany Hollebeck and Anda Ghinga anchor the top spot in the singles rotation as Hollebeck is 6-4 overall followed by Ghinga in the second flight with an 8-4 overall mark. Doubles play will see Hollebeck team up with Casie Curry in the first flight for a 10-3 record, while Ghinga and Emilija Visic are 11-2 in the second flight.
DBU, in its first season in the Lone Star Conference, owns a 13-3 record and a 4-1 mark in league matches. The Patriots have won five consecutive matches, including conference wins over UAFS, CU, WNMU and UTPB. Adriana Carpenter and Taylor Leslie are the one-two punch as the former is 13-2 overall in the dual season while the latter is 15-1.
Doubles play for DBU has seen Carpenter team up with Sarah Castleberry for a 9-3 record between all three flights, while Lesie and Kate Daugherty are 7-2 as the top doubles tandem.
The final opponent for the Javelinas owns a 3-10 overall record and still searching for its first LSC win as UT Permian Basin has dropped four straight matches, three in league play.
The first matchup against MSU Texas is set for 2 p.m. on April 8 at the MSU Tennis Center.
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