SURPRISE, Ariz.— Catalina Ballon Marin and
Jane Steur won a doubles match while other Colorado Mesa University Mavericks put up strong battles in singles play, which proved to not be enough for the CMU women's tennis team, which dropped a Pacific West Conference Tournament Consolation Semifinal by a 4-0 count to Concordia University Irvine on Friday morning.
The seventh-seeded Mavericks fell to 1-2 on the week and to 16-13 on the campaign and will close out the season in Saturday morning's seventh place match against No. 9 seed Stanislaus State, slated for a 9 a.m. start (10 a.m. Mountain) here at the Surprise Tennis Center.
The CUI Golden Eagles, seeded third, improved to 14-10 overall after suffering a minor upset to No. 6 seed Hawai'i Pacific in Thursday's quarterfinal round. They will play Dominican in the fifth place match on Saturday.
In Friday's semifinals, No. 4 seed Biola upset top seed Azusa Pacific, 4-2, and will meet second-seeded Point Loma in Saturday's championship match. The See Lions, who beat CMU in the quarterfinals, knocked off Hawai'i Pacific, 4-1 in Friday's other semifinal.
In the Mavs' match-up, Ballon Marin and Steur were comfortable 6-1 winners over Cheynne Houkes and Kristyna Dvorakova at No. 3 doubles.
However, the Golden Eagles won the other two doubles matches, 6-2 and 6-0 to seize the overall 1-0 lead.
In singles, they were victorious in straight sets at No. 2, 4 and 6 to finish the dual early.
Devyn Rodriguez did take the first set of her No. 2 singles match to a tiebreaker, but eventually fell 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 to Bryn Johnson, who clinched CUI's victory.
The other three matches were also tight but were left unfinished.
Makenna Livingston lost the first set at No. 1, but won the second set, 6-4 over Sophie Rachor. The third set was tied at 1-all.
At No. 3, CUI's Jessica Bear won on a first set tiebreaker, 7-4 over CMU's
Jade Brilhante. The second set was still young.
At No. 5, Houkes won the first set over Ballon Marin, although the Maverick freshman was leading the second set, 5-2 and on the verge of sending the match to a third set when it was called off.
