The Bradley women’s tennis team took home a pair of wins against Valparaiso and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville last Saturday. The wins bring Bradley’s record to 4-2 on the young season.
The Braves started off the day with a 6-1 win over Valparaiso. This marked Bradley’s seventh consecutive win against the Crusaders.
Freshman Alexa Brandt and sophomore Ashley Thai started off the day with a 6-4 win in No. 1 doubles, their second win of the season. Junior Irinka Toidze and sophomore Ariel Dechter secured the doubles point for Bradley with a 6-2 win in No. 2 doubles.
Among the highlights of Bradley’s five singles victories over Valparaiso was Dechter’s 11th straight singles victory, which she earned in a marathon 11-9 third set victory.
Head coach Matt Tyler said his team is getting results from every player, regardless of their position.
“The fun thing for us is that we’re winning at different positions each match,” head coach Matt Tyler said. “The girls know that they can rely on each other if one is having an off day. It’ll be scary when we put it all together, and that’s when we’ll start upsetting teams.” The Braves were able to carry over their momentum to the next match of the day, defeating SIUE 4-3.
The spots were the same as the first match of the day, with the exception of Toidze replacing senior Elizabeth Przystawski in the singles lineup.
Once again, the Braves snatched the doubles point with the Brandt/Thai duo winning 6-3 and the Toidzke/Dechter duo winning 6-3.
After the first two sets of singles, the match was tied at 2-2. Toidze won 6-4, 6-4 and fresh- man Aimee Manfredo won 6-3, 7-6. Brandt dropped her match 6-3, 6-0 and senior Cassia Wojtalik lost 6-1, 6-0.
Bradley was up 3-2 in the match going into the third set of Dechter and Thai’s matches. Dechter came up short in her match, losing her first singles match of the season 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, leaving it up to Thai to win the overall match for the Braves. After a thrilling second set that SIUE was able to come away with 6-7, Thai rallied to take the third set 6-3 and cap off the day- long sweep.
“Ashley Thai came up huge to clinch that last point,” Tyler said. “She had a tough second set, so it was good to see her come out and battle to take the third set.”
Bradley faces off against Ball State today in Muncie, Ind. at 6 p.m.
