Women's Tennis | 3/1/2015 6:20:00 PM
WALLA WALLA, Wash. – A pair of wins Sunday gave the Whitman College women's tennis team a clean sweep of its matches while hosting the three-day WC Winter Classic at the Bratton Indoor Tennis Center. The 29th-ranked Missionaries swept No. 39 University of Texas-Tyler, 9-0, in Sunday's morning match before coming back in the afternoon to take down Northwest Conference opponent Whitworth University, 7-2.
Sunday's wins come on the heels of Friday morning's 8-1 victory in Bratton over 38th-ranked Whittier College. With the three victories Whitman improves to 6-2 overall and 4-0 within the conference. Whitworth drops to 3-3 overall and 3-2 in the league, and Texas-Tyler slips to 4-3 with their morning defeat.
The grind of the weekend, following a weekend in which the Missionaries went 2-0 and dropped only one match, left head coach
John Hein proud of the way his players competed.
"That schedule was both mentally and physically challenging for our players," said Hein. "And at the end of this stretch they still played how they expect to play and when you do that, you win more matches."
Both of Sunday's matches started out with clean sweeps in doubles action, leading the Missionaries into singles play with three-point cushions.
The morning match was an overpowering singles display as all six players won in straight sets. By the time the last game finished Whitman had racked up 72 wins against just 18 losses.,
The Whitworth match had the added importance of being against a conference foe, as well as the last match in a seven-day stretch of five matches.
Each of the four points Whitman captured in singles play against Whitworth came from players registering two wins on the day.
Jenna Dobrin at No. 1,
Allie Wallin at 2,
Lindsey Brodeck at 4 and
Alexandra Sigouin at No. 5 also won in straight sets in the morning against Texas-Tyler. Cumulatively for the two matches Dobrin and Wallin surrendered just five games each.
Sigouin, who strolled through a 6-1, 6-0 match at 6-singles against Texas-Tyler, had one of the more impressive showings late in the day against Whitworth's Annabelle Burns.
Burns led 5-4 in the opening set but Sigouin broke serve to tie the set at 5-5, held serve to move ahead then broke Burns again to take the opening set. Sigouin then won the opening game of the second set, Burns then held to break a string of four game defeats, but couldn't hold off Sigouin any longer as the Whitman player pounded out wins in the next five games to sweep the match, having won nine of the final 11 games.
The Missionaries get a well-earned break before taking back to the courts in two weeks time, welcoming the University of Puget Sound to campus on Friday, March 13 followed by a visit from Pacific Lutheran University Sunday afternoon.
