March 21, 2010

Results

MILWAUKEE - The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's tennis team opened Horizon League play by splitting a pair of matches in a little over 12 hours time at the Paley Tennis Center this weekend.

The Panthers (4-9, 1-1 Horizon) fell to 10-time defending league champion UIC, 7-0, late Saturday night before bouncing back to knock off Valparaiso, 7-0, early Sunday morning.

After the Flames controlled play in Saturday's contest, UWM turned the tables on the Crusaders Sunday. The Panthers easily won the doubles point and then were rarely threatened in singles play.

"I think it was a solid first weekend of conference play," UWM head coach Sean McInerney said. "We played very hard against UIC and I was proud of that. To compete at that level, we are going to have to move better and develop a more consistent style of player."

Kelly Drvaric, Ashley Schoneman and Sammi Schoen claimed easy straight-set victories in the top three slots against VU, while Kelly Fritz, Brittany Skemp and Beth Ganser also rounded out the lineup with wins.

Milwaukee also won all three doubles matchups against Valpo.

In the contest with UIC, the two most competitive contests came at number-one doubles and number-six singles. The tandem of Drvaric and Kari Kastenholz dropped a hard-fought tiebreaker against Mariya Kovaleva and Kristen McPhillips, while Skemp fell, 6-4, 6-3, to Jenna Reisch in her singles outing.

The win over the Crusaders helped snap a three-match slide by Milwaukee.

"The Valpo match was a good win," McInerney said. "We have really struggled this season on back-to-back night matches followed by 8 a.m. starts the next day. I think our team came in prepared for the match and took care of business."

UWM continues league play with matches at Youngstown State and Cleveland State next weekend.