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UH knocks off No. 63 Rice, falls to Lady Horned Frogs

Confidence high after two solid showings vs. ranked teams; doubles play still keeping Cougars competitive in C-USA

by Tony Hernandez
The Daily Cougar

Coming in with a four-game winning streak that included an impressive win against No. 63 Rice on Friday, the Cougar tennis squad suffered a gut-wrenching loss to No. 27 Texas Christian on Sunday at the John E. Hoff Varsity Tennis Courts.

Nathan Lindstrom/The Daily Cougar 

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Sophomore Yolandi Terblanche won both of her matches this weekend, including a 6-2, 6-1 defeat of Texas Christian's Karla Mancinas on Sunday.

The Cougars defeated the Lady Owls 5-2 with the team winning the doubles point and the singles wins coming from junior Biljana Dimovska, sophomore Yolandi Terblanche, senior Karine Urbin and sophomore Kami Miller.

"This team has more heart than I've ever seen in my career," UH head coach Jen Hyde said. Though they lost Sunday, the Cougars left the courts on a positive note, nearly defeating the Lady Horned Frogs but just coming up short, 3-4.

The Cougar team of Dimovska and sophomore Miranda Foley defeated the No. 24 team in the nation, Ana Cetnik and Saber Pierce, 8-6. Karla Mancinas and Paty Aburto of TCU defeated Urbin and junior Diana Martin, 8-3. Terblanche and Miller defeated the team of Gabby Lopez and Paige Brown, 8-6. Hyde said clinching the doubles point against TCU, especially against the nationally-ranked team of Cetnik and Pierce, gives the Cougars confidence.

The singles play began with Terblanche, who defeated Mancinas, 6-2, 6-1. Cetnik from TCU defeated Urbin, 6-1, 6-2. Martin lost to Saber Pierce, 7-5, 6-3. Dimovska was defeated by Jenn Chay, 6-2, 7-6. Miller defeated Brown, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4. With the team score tied 3-3, Foley played boldly against Aburto, who still managed to triumph, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

The team loss puts the Cougars with an 8-8 record overall and 2-1 in Conference USA. With wins against South Florida, Utah and Rice, all of which are ranked, the Cougars have demonstrated they can hang with the top teams. The squad has a big week ahead with matches against No. 55 Tulsa, New Mexico State, and Texas-El Paso.

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