Rice University
Northwestern State
Women's Tennis Sinks Northwestern State
2/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Feb. 18, 2008
Northwestern State at Rice (Box Score - PDF) 
HOUSTON - The Rice women's tennis team opened a three-match homestand with an impressive 6-1 victory over Northwestern State Monday afternoon at Jake Hess Stadium on the Rice campus.
The match was originally schedule for Saturday morning, but rain pushed the match back to Monday. Rice (7-4) has won five of its six matches at home this season.
Rice got off to a quick start by clinching the doubles point with a pair of 8-2 victories from the pairs of Tiffany Lee and Rebecca Lin along with Emily Braid and Varsha Shiva-Shankar at the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively.
Julie Chao and Dominique Karas secured the doubles sweep by knocking off Bogusia Patzer and Kathrin Lange 8-4 in the top spot.
"It was a tough turnaround for the girls today going to a full morning of classes after losing a heartbreaker at Texas yesterday," head coach Roger White said. "They did a great job of dealing with that. I'm proud of the fight and spirit that the team showed on the court."
Chao and Shiva-Shankar anchored the top and bottom of the lineup to extend the Owls advantage to 3-0. Chao dominated Pazer 6-0, 6-1 before Shiva-Shankar fired off a 6-0, 6-0 clean sweep of Marine Neveu.
"Varsha played extremely efficient and executing her game plan to perfection," White said. "Even though Julie is only a sophomore, we expect those kinds of effort from her. She did a great job of not allowing a tough player to get into the match."
Tiffany Lee emerged the clinching point and picked up a 6-1, 6-1 triumph at No. 3 over Adna Curukovic.
"We were aggressive to start the match," Lee said. "We knew that we need to come out here and take of care of business."
Bianca Schulz put the Demons (3-4) on the board with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Lin to make it 4-1.
Braid notched a hard-fought 7-5, 6-3 in the No. 5 hole over Daniela Posada, while Karas overcame a 5-3 deficit in the second set at No. 2 to win a 6-2, 7-6 (7) decision for the final margin of 6-1.
Rice welcomes a pair of Southland opponents taking on Sam Houston State and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi this weekend. First serve against the Bearkats is set for Friday at 3pm.
"Both of our opponents are going to be ready to play," White said. "We're excited for the opportunities and challenges that the weekend will bring in front of our home crowd."
Admission is free to both matches this weekend at Jake Hess Stadium.
Players Mentioned
