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Sports

Cougars rope Cowgirls in opener

Houston netters begin season with dominant showing over McNeese

By Jordan Overturf
The Daily Cougar

The UH tennis team opened the spring season last Saturday at home against the McNeese State Cowgirls, where they dominated 7-0. 

"We want to secure our home site by winning every match at home, be a good road team and secure our place in conference," UH tennis head coach John Severance said.

The Coogs started off with a perfect doubles sweep 3-0 to earn the first point of the match. Senior Biljana Dimovska was teamed up with newcomer freshman Brianna Bateup to knock down Madeline Hakansson and Ann Grobbelaar 8-2. 

"We are gonna cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams," Dimovska said about her new doubles partner.

Junior Kami Miller and senior Diana Martin dropped their opponents Noelia Furno and Natascha Jongeneel 8-3 to secure the first point. Freshman Tiffany McLoughlin and junior Yolandi Terblanche finished 8-6 against Magali Risoleo and Urska Doberseck.

"Two of the teams that I put together were ranked in the southwest for the fall, which they obviously did a pretty good job," Severance said about matching his doubles partners together. 

In singles play, Terblanche blew through Grobbelaar 6-0, 6-0 to finish first for the Cougars. Dimovska gave up only two games to Furno finishing second 6-0, 6-2. Miller put away Doberseck after a difficult 6-4, 6-4 match. 

Martin played against Risoleo in a long 6-4, 6-4. McLoughlin went up against Jonquenel in a 6-3, 6-4 outcome. Both Martin and McLoughlin had come-from-behind wins in the second sets to finalize the victory over the cowgirls. Bateup finished her first singles match versus Hakansson 6-1, 6-4, capping off the team's perfect day.

"Keep winning," Severance said about getting ready for the coming weeks. "We're playing pretty decent, but we have a lot of work to get ready to play three or four potentially top 75 teams."

The Cougars go on the road first to Furman, a team that has been to last year's NCAA tournament, and then to Georgia State before they return home to face LSU and Texas Tech -- both made the NCAA tourney in 2004. Dimovska went on to say the squad becomes motivated when they know they'll face other top ranked teams to give them practice for post season play.

"As a team, we all want to get to the NCAA tournament and to win conference," she said.

The team travels to Greenville, North Carolina to face Furman on Friday at 3 p.m. 
 

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