Sports
 

Coogs stay tough despite schedule

UH still battling youth, inexperience while playing against some of nation's best teams

Cougar Sports Staff

At times this season, the Cougars have played as well as they could have hoped. Unfortunately for Houston, however, they have also played as poorly as they could have feared. 

Sometimes.

As Houston has been struggling through a difficult patch of its schedule in the past three weeks, the team has sometimes looked as though it were capable of hanging with all of its opponents, which lately have been some of the top-ranked team in the country. 

The Cougars lost 7-0 to No. 28 Pennsylvania on Wednesday, but the team had a legitimate chance to win three, perhaps even four matches but failed to take advantage of several important opportunities. The Cougars took the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 singles matches to three sets, and they nearly won the No. 3 doubles match.

Sophomore Miranda Foley held her ground in the No. 1 match against Penn senior Nikky Ptak, the No.48 player in the nation, but lost 4-6, 6-2, 7-6. Penn's Caroline Stanislawski only barely defeated UH junior Biljana Dimovska, 6-1, 5-7, 7-6. And Shelah Chao of Penn eeked by sophomore Yolandi Terblanche, 3-6, 6-3, 6-0.

In the No. 3 doubles match, the team of Terblanche and fellow sophomore Kami Miller went to a tiebreaker with the duo of Stanislawski and Kate Williams before losing 9-8. 

Wednesday's defeat was UH's sixth consecutive loss, bringing the Cougars' overall record to 4-7. But the Cougars are in good position in Conference USA, and will have a good chance to be competitive in the C-USA Championships, which begin April 15 in Louisville, Ky.

The Cougars will host Utah at 11 a.m. Friday at the John E. Hoff Varsity Tennis Courts.

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