Eastern fails to win match over weekend
Casey Tolliver
Issue date: 2/14/08 Section: Sports
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First, the Colonels learned on Friday that they are projected to finish second in the Ohio Valley Conference this season, according to a preseason poll of OVC coaches.
Individual players Svetlana Pimenova, Meredith Giles and Alexandra Sitnikova also climbed into the OVC top-10 player rankings. In 2006, Giles was named the OVC Player of the Year.
That same day, the Colonels received an on-the-court lesson, dropping all of their singles matches for a 0-7 loss at the hands of East Tennessee State University, which is 1-3 on the year.
Alexandra Sitnikova, Anouk Faure and Jemma Eurs fought back from first set losses to win their second sets, but each lost their tie-breaking third sets.
Eastern's only victory of the match came from doubles play, when senior Meredith Giles and freshman Anouk Faure paired up to win their match against ETSU.
"Zero to seven is not indicative of how the whole weekend turned out," said Eastern head tennis coach Rob Oertel. "The quality of tennis this past weekend was the highest quality of women's tennis in EKU history."
The following day did not get any easier for the Colonels as they dropped their second straight match of the weekend, losing 0-7 to Miami (Ohio).
Freshman Vera Heimeroth was the only Colonel who came close to winning when she took the second set by a lopsided score of 6-1. However, Heimeroth could not hold on to win the third set and dropped the match to Miami.
"Both of these teams were better than OVC teams," Oertel said. "If we can keep that in perspective, we'll have a good spring."
The Colonels are 3-3 on the season, while Miami improved to 5-1.
Meanwhile, the Eastern men's tennis team fared well on Friday, despite the fact that they had the weekend off.
In the same OVC preseason poll, the men's team was projected to finish fourth in the conference and had Senior Lars Gratzki and freshman Alex Das Izquierdo included on the top-10 player rankings.
Gratzki, who is no stranger to the top player list, is a two-time All-OVC honoree.
Das Izquierdo is the only freshman to be included in conference rankings, according to a press release.
The women's tennis team is off this weekend, while the men return to action with a double header against Southern Illinois and Southeastern Louisiana this Friday.
The first match starts at 10 a.m.