Women’s tennis rallies to beat Youngstown State

After sweeping Youngstown State in two matches last season, the Pitt women’s tennis team… After sweeping Youngstown State in two matches last season, the Pitt women’s tennis team kept its winning streak against Youngstown State alive by winning Wednesday’s match 4-3. Pitt came back in the match to win four of its six singles contests.

“It’s always nice to win the really close matches. You have to have a total team effort to pull that off, and we were able to do that,” coach George Dieffenbach said.

Youngstown State won two of three matches in doubles play, giving them one point toward the match score.

In the No. 1 doubles match, Karen Najbert and Gina Peretti defeated Pitt’s Annie Davies and Hayley Hughes by a score of 8-4.

In a closely contested match, Youngstown’s No. 2 doubles team of Nicole Muzechuk and Heather Hagood was able to get by Becky Emmers and Emily Hughes 8-6.

The Panthers’ Laura Pegula and Konita Jude cruised through in No. 3 doubles, defeating Sarah Evans and Andrea Dixon, 8-0.

With the match score at 1-0 in favor of Youngstown State, the singles play began with Pitt coming out strong and resilient, needing four singles victories to win the team match. The Panthers were evidently up to the challenge, coming through with wins in the No. 1, No. 2, No. 5, and No. 6 matches.

Emmers dominated her entire match, and came away with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Najbert in No. 1 singles.

In the No. 2 singles match, Davies won in decisive fashion over Hagood in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2.

In the No. 3 spot, Hayley Hughes played an extremely close match against Youngstown’s Peretti. Hughes lost the first set in a tiebreak, but was able to come back in the second set and get a late service break to force a match tiebreaker.Hughes could not ride the momentum of her second-set win and was defeated in the match tiebreaker. Peretti took the match 7-6, 9-7, 5-7, 10-4 in the longest match of the day.

Emily Hughes, in the No. 4 singles match, lost a tough match to Muzechuk by a score of 6-3 and 6-2.

Pitt’s No. 5 singles player Pegula proved the better player in her match, rolling past Dixon, 6-2, 6-1.

Completing the action for the day, in the No. 6 singles match, was Jude, who handled Evans the entire match. Jude took the match 6-1 and 6-2 to seal the deal for Pitt.

“It was great to win the match after being down after doubles. Those four players fought very hard to get the wins that they did,” Dieffenbach said. “The team was able to stay aggressive and work hard to hold serve and get some breaks of serve, which is what was needed to win this match.”

This weekend, Pitt will travel to West Point, N.Y., to participate in the Women’s Eastern Collegiate Tournament, which features more than 30 teams from all over the East Coast and is slated to go from Oct. 3 to Oct. 5.