by Steven Fernandez
Daily Lobo
It was a long-awaited victory for the UNM women's tennis team.
The No. 69 Lobos earned their first win in conference play Saturday, beating Utah 5-2 in Salt
Lake City.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
With the win, UNM improved to 8-10 overall and 1-4 in the Mountain West Conference, snapping a seven-match losing streak.
Head coach Kathy Kolankiewicz said the team did not lose composure during the losing streak, which helped them win.
"I have to hand it to the girls; they've fought really, really hard all these matches," she said. "Even the ones we lost, they fought hard. We just kept telling them it's going to pay off, and today it did."
UNM fought off the Utes to win the doubles point before heading into singles play. Utah's Elizabeth Ferris and Leigh Walsh defeated the Lobos' Sandra Zmak and Lucy Scott in the No. 1 doubles spot.
UNM's Ola Abou-Zekry and Jennifer Ryba won the No. 2 doubles match, and Nora Quintal and Maria Sotirchos clinched the doubles point for the Lobos with a comeback win.
Kolankiewicz said earning the doubles point was vital heading into singles.
"This weekend, we felt like we started to play doubles better, and it paid off," she said. "They have some good doubles teams, and I think that helped our confidence going into singles."
In singles play, Ferris beat Abou-Zekry at the No. 1 position, but the Lobos' No. 2-5 singles players won their matches to help UNM defeat Utah.
Zmak beat Utah's Emily Kwok 6-0, 6-4 at No. 2 and Mackenzie White handled Walsh 6-0, 6-1
at No. 3.
Scott clinched the match when she won the No. 5 position against Utah's Cheyenne Reveche, 6-0, 7-5. Quintal later won at No. 4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.
Kolankiewicz said every Lobo played a part in the win.
"It's just a total team effort, and I think every person on the team contributed," she said. "It feels great to win again."
Before Saturday's win at Utah, the Lobos had opened conference play with four straight losses, falling to Texas Christian, UNLV, San Diego State and Brigham Young.
All five matches were road games, and the schools UNM lost to were some of the best in the conference, Kolankiewicz said.
"We just happened to have the bulk of our hard-schedule matches all together," she said. "We just kept taking loss after loss against good teams. A few of those were really in our reach of winning."
The loss of No. 1 singles player and All-American Iva Gersic, whose collegiate career came to an end after she tore ligaments in her ankle in February, made it harder for the Lobos against
conference foes.
Kolankiewicz said losing Gersic hurt the team, especially with a tough conference schedule.
"We won a couple matches right after the Iva accident, and we felt like we were going to be OK," she said. "We just have had a really tough seven matches in a row that we haven't seen in a number
of years."
UNM closes out its regular season by hosting three conference matches this weekend. The Lobos will take on Colorado State, Wyoming and Air Force on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in an attempt to draw even in MWC play.
This weekend's victory, coupled with hosting the last regular-season matches, can give UNM momentum going into the conference tournament, Kolankiewicz said.
"We're hoping that (Saturday) starts our winning streak," she said. "We always seem to rise to the occasion at home. It's a really special day because it's Senior Day, and we've got four seniors on our team. It'll be a very big weekend."
Women's tennis vs. Colorado State
Thursday, 4 p.m.
UNM Tennis Club
