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The St. Catherine University tennis played solid tennis throughout the fall, but was looking forward to its first regular season test in 2015. In two non-conference matches, the Wildcats showed their ability to fight through challenges in order to defeat a tough opponent in taking down the University of Northwestern-St. Paul narrowly 5-4 before cruising to a 9-0 win over the University of Minnesota-Duluth Saturday at the University of Minnesota Baseline Tennis Center in Minneapolis.
"This was a great way to start our season," said Head Coach Ben Hagseth. "They put in a total team effort today and fought hard the entire way and never gave up."
Against a much-improved Northwestern squad, the Wildcats had to fight for every point in order to come away with a victory to start season. The Wildcats took the doubles portion of the match 2-1 with
Alicia Knoll (Waseca, Minn./Waseca) and
Jessica Duda (St. Micheal, Minn./St. Michael-Albertville) winning 8-4 at the No. 3 doubles position and
Angie Lorenzen (Mitchell, S.D./Mitchell) and
Maria Koval (Green Bay, Wis./Notre Dame Academy) won 8-5 at No. 2 doubles.
In singles, No. 1 Koval and No. 2
Kylie Ketcho (Eden Prairie, Minn./Academy of Holy Angels) dropped matches to the Eagles' top player in Megan Johnson and Karen Moe. At the No. 3 spot,
Mikinzee Salo (Brainerd, Minn./Brainerd) turned in a solid win of 6-0, 6-2 over Birdie Bardwell to tie the match at 3-3.
Duda dropped the No. 6 match to Tina Matetich, while Knoll cruised to a 6-0, 6-0 win over Brooke Lapinski at the No. 5 spot to put the pressure on Lorenzen at the No. 4 position. After winning the opening set 7-5, Lorenzen fell 5-7 to Rachel Bostrom at the No. 4 spot in the second set. Lorenzen didn't give up, though, as she clinched the Wildcat victory winning the third-set tiebreaker 10-8.
In the second match of the day, the Wildcats got a 8-4 victory at the No. 1 doubles spot from Ketcho and Salo to kick off the match in the right direction. Koval and Lorenzen won 8-6 at the No. 2, while Knoll and Duda took down Emma Bartels and Katie Baasch of the Bulldogs 9-8 winning in a tiebreaker at the No. 3 position to give the Wildcats a 3-0 lead after doubles.
Heading into singles with a lead, the Wildcats came out firing on all cyclinders with Koval leading the way with a 6-0, 6-0 win over Alyssa Brunelli at the No. 1 spot. Ketcho was just as good with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Kara Saeaman at the No. 2 position.
Knoll took a 6-3, 6-1 at No. 5 singles against Kaitlin Wohnutcka, while Salo solidly defeated Drew DeCorsey 6-2, 6-3 at No. 3 singles. Duda took a close 7-6 win in the first set against Jillian Klasen at the No. 6 spot, before winning the second set 6-4. Lorenzen had to fight again in the second match of the day at the No. 4 spot in the lineup. She took the first set 6-2 over Shelby Benkofske before falling 1-6 in the second. The junior then won the match by a 10-8 tiebreaker score for the second time in the day.
With the wins, the Wildcats open the 2015 season 2-0. They open Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) play next Friday against Saint Mary's University. The match is slated for 6 p.m. in Winona, Minnesota.
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