Texas A&M
Missouri
Aggie Women Improve to 7-0 at Home with 5-2 Win Against Missouri
Mar 20, 2011 | Women's Tennis
March 20, 2011
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Texas A&M senior Christi Liles dropped her first set but came back to win the next two sets to clinch the winning point as the 26th-ranked Aggies went on to defeat No. 69 Missouri, 5-2, today at the George P. Mitchell Tennis Center.
With the victory, the Aggies improve to 7-0 in home matches, 8-3 overall and 2-1 in Big 12 Conference matches. Missouri falls to 8-5 overall and 0-3 in the Big 12.
"I give Missouri a lot of credit," A&M coach Bobby Kleinecke said. "They came in with a mentality that they were going to win the match and laid it out there. I wished that we would have been more fired up to start with. I felt like we were a little bit blah. I just feel like we didn't play with enough positive emotion, and you need the positive emotion to help build you up. Whether you are playing good or you are playing bad, you need that positive emotion.
"We took care of the match, but we made it harder than it needed to be in a sense if we had just played with more emotion, like the emotion we have been playing with this year."
The Aggies won two of three doubles matches to take a 1-0 lead. Morgan Frank (Oldsmar, Fla.) and Nazari Urbina (Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico) held a narrow 4-3 lead against Missouri's Maria Christensen and Rachel Stuhlmann before the A&M duo reeled off the next four games to get the win at the No. 2 line.
Missouri's Kaitlyn Ritchie and Mallory Weber evened the race to the doubles point with a convincing 8-4 win against Janelle Cuthbertson (Perth, Australia) and Liles (Largo, Fla.) at No. 1. The Tiger duo broke serve to take a 2-1 lead and continued to pull away for the remainder of the match.
The doubles point came down to the No. 3 line, were Stephanie Davidson (Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas) and Sheri Olivier (Topeka, Kan.) held off Marlen Hacke and Jamie Mera, 8-5. It was Davidson's ninth win in her last 10 matches, and she moves into sole possession of seventh place in the A&M records with her 89th career doubles victory.
"Stephanie and Sheri, they played fired up from the first point, and I felt really good about them," Kleinecke said. "It took No. 2 doubles four or five games, and that is taking a chance. If a team takes it to you at that time, you are in trouble."
Frank didn't waste time in singles. The senior held a narrow 2-1 lead against Weber at No. 2 before reeling off 10 consecutive games to race to a 6-1, 6-0 victory and put the Aggies up, 2-0. It marked Frank's 80th career win, putting her within three of breaking into the top 10 in the A&M all-time career records.
It would be nearly 40 minutes before Davidson put the Aggies ahead, 3-0, with a 6-3, 6-3 win against Mera at the No. 5 line.
Christensen put the Tigers on the scoreboard and within 3-1, rallying from a 5-2 deficit in the second set tiebreaker to defeat Cuthbertson, 6-3, 7-6 (8), at No. 4.
Liles then came through to clinch the point at No. 3. Liles lost the first set to Hacke, 6-4, and trailed the second set, 3-1. Liles then erupted for 12 consecutive games to win the last two sets, 6-3, 6-0.
Urbina, ranked No. 18 in singles, was challenged by a determined Ritchie but improved to 3-0 in Big 12 play all at the No. 1 line with a 6-4, 6-7 (3), 1-0 (7) victory to put A&M ahead 5-1. Stuhlmann then completed the match with a 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 comeback win against Lauren Santacroce (Spring, Texas) at No. 6.
"This team has great things that they can show," Kleinecke said as he reflected on his team being undefeated at home. "We've had to battle a lot of different adversities throughout those seven wins. That is setting the tone as long as we learn the lesson from each one of them. We are going to have to call on all of these (wins) as the season progresses."
The Aggies play their next four matches on the road, heading to the Sunflower State next weekend for a pair of Big 12 matches against Kansas State and Kansas, Saturday and Sunday, respectively, and then taking a break for conference play by playing No. 17 Notre Dame and DePaul, April 2 and 3, in South Bend, Ind.
Kansas State stunned No. 10 Baylor, 4-3, in Waco, on Friday.
"As a coach, the next important thing ahead of us is Kansas State," Kleinecke added. "It is a team that we better be ready to play. We struggled with them indoors last year. We won 5-2, but it was a close 5-2. It will be a taxing trip, and we have to get our minds ready now to travel again and win on the road."
Live scoring of the matches will be available at AggieAthletics.com. In addition, updates will be posted on Twitter @AggieTennis.
No. 26 Texas A&M 5, No. 69 Missouri 2 Singles
George P. Mitchell Tennis Center
College Station, Texas
Attendance: 265
2. Morgan Frank (TAMU) def. Mallory Weber (MU), 6-1, 6-0
3. Christi Liles (TAMU) def. Marlen Hacke (MU), 4-6, 6-3, 6-0
4. Maria Christensen (MU) def. Janelle Cuthbertson (TAMU), 6-3, 7-6 (6)
5. Stephanie Davidson (TAMU) def. Jamie Mera (MU), 6-3, 6-3
6. Rachel Stuhlmann (MU) def. Lauren Santacroce (TAMU), 2-6, 6-4, 7-5
Doubles (A&M wins the point)
1. Ritchie/Weber (MU) def. Cuthbertson/Liles (TAMU), 8-4
2. Frank/Urbina (TAMU) def. Christensen/Stuhlmann (MU), 8-3
3. Davidson/Sheri Olivier (TAMU) def. Hacke/Mera (MU), 8-5
Order of finish:
Doubles: 2, 1, 3
Singles: 2, 5, 4, 3*, 1, 6
*-clinched match
Team records:
Texas A&M: (8-3, 2-1 Big 12)
Missouri (8-5, 0-3 Big 12)
Follow A&M on Twitter @AggieTennis.
Players Mentioned
