It was the tale of two matches for the women's tennis team this weekend, as they scored their third Mid-American Conference victory over Toledo on Friday evening before falling to last year's MAC runner-up Eastern Michigan the following day.
On Friday, the Cardinals easily handled the Rockets, winning all but two doubles matches. It was their third 5-2 conference victory of the season, all against opponents they defeated last year.
"We had a really good solid team effort on Friday, I don't think we got exactly the type of match we expected," coach Kathy Bull said. "No real major surprises, just a good solid performance."
Eastern Michigan, meanwhile, blanked the Cardinals. The Cards were only able to win one singles match, defeating the Eagles Jessica Loose and Marijana Adzic. However, Bull said she thinks the match was a lot closer than the score sheet indicates.
"Well, you know the toughest thing is, even 24 hours later, though the score was 0-7, I don't feel like we've been beaten 7-0. We had a chance to steal the doubles point, and we had three other matches that were on third set situations," Bull said. "Within four minutes it could have been a 3-4 match or where it ended up, 0-7. I'm a little disappointed that we didn't close out a couple of those opportunities."
Jill Wieman, Jessica Thompson and Susan Kelly all took their matches into three sets before loosing all three matches in third sets and tie-breakers.
"The Eastern Michigan coach came up and said we played them as hard from one to six as Marshall and Miami did," Bull said.
Marshall won the MAC Championship last year and is currently ranked No. 57 in the country.
Coach Bull said she thinks her team is on the verge of a breakthrough.
"We're at the crest and we're about to see over the hill, and then we lose our footing and fall down about three feet, and we have to decide if we're going to keep sliding down or if we're going to climb back up," she said. "We're in this kind of tenuous position, we are so close to something -- we're close to a great breakthrough."
The match in Ypsilanti, Mich. was the Cardinals' final away match of the regular season. The Cardinals will have three weekends at home before heading to DeKalb, Ill. for the MAC Championship.
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