The SMU women's tennis team has advanced to the round of 32 at the NCAA Championship for the first time since 1988, thanks to the squad's 4-2 upset victory Saturday afternoon over No. 25 TCU at the Mitchell Tennis Center in College Station, Texas. The Mustangs were making their first NCAA appearance since 1996 and defeated a top 25 Horned Frog team they had lost to earlier in the season, 4-3. The Ponies will take on Texas A&M at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday with a trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 held May 20-23 in Athens, Ga. at stake.
"It’s exciting. We lost to them earlier in the year, so it was a good win," SMU first year head coach Rob Howarth said. "Actually, the doubles was almost identical to earlier in the year. It came down to the No. 1 doubles and we ended up winning it in a tie-breaker, so it went exactly the same except we won three of the singles this time."
Beginning at doubles, TCU won at No. 3 doubles but after the SMU No. 2 duo of Nadia Vaughan and Lynsie Jones won 8-3 the doubles point depended on the play at the No. 1 slot. The Mustangs top doubles duo of Kit Carson and Lynsie Jones played through 10 tie breakers to win the match at No. 1, 9-8, giving SMU the ever important 1-0 lead heading to singles play.
In singles, SMU's No. 6 player Halley Rambally opened the Pony lead to 2-0 with her convincing 6-0, 6-4 win over TCU's Paige Brown. SMU then went up 3-0 after Jenny Langer won at No. 3 singles over Jenn Chay, 6-2, 6-3. TCU bounced back though, first cutting the lead to 3-1 after the Horned Frog's No. 1 player Paty Aburto defeated SMU's Svetlana Kouzmenko, 6-3, 6-4.
TCU continued to fight back, winning at No. 2 singles as Saber Pierce defeated SMU's Kit Carson, 6-1, 6-7 (6), 6-1. With the score now 3-2, SMU's Lynsie Jones clinched the win for the Ponies with a two set 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4) win over TCU's Gloriann Lopez.
“I am really proud of them. It takes a lot of courage and guts to come back and win a match like that after being down," Howarth said. "I am always proud of them when they can pull out something like that."
With the win SMU improves to 18-10 on the year, while TCU finishes its season with a 17-8 mark. The victory was SMU's first of the year against a top 25 team and advanced the Mustangs to Sunday's second round match-up against Texas A&M. First serve is slated for 2:00 p.m.
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