Rice University Athletics
Owls Open Up With Sweep of Lamar
1/16/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Jan. 16, 2009
The Rice Women's Tennis team opened their 2009 campaign by blanking Lamar 7-0 at Jake Hess Tennis Center on Friday afternoon.
The Owls and Cardinals split the first two doubles matches but Rice captured the doubles point thanks to an 8-0 blanking by their No. 3 doubles tandem of Jessica Jackson and Varsha Shiva-Shankar.
Julie Chao and Ana Guzman, the Owls top two singles players, each dropped a first set, but battled back to take their matches, while the Owls other four singles entries (Jackson, Rebecca Lin, Shiva-Shankar and Emily Baird) took their matches in straight sets.
Chao dropped the first set to Mariaryeni Gutierrez (4-6), but battled back to take the second set 6-5 and swept the tie-breaker, 10-0. Guzman dropped a hard first set to Maria Gutierrez, 7-6, then took the second set, 6-3 and the tie-breaker, 10-6.
"This was a great way to start our season, to come out and beat a talented Lamar team, 7-0," Owls head coach Elizabeth Schmidt said. " Now we have to refocus and be ready for another tough match tomorrow against Texas A&M Corpus Christi."
The Owls match with Texas A&M Corpus Christi is slated to start at 2 pm on Saturday at the Hess Tennis Center.
Players Mentioned
