After suffering a road sweep last week against UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly Women’s Tennis bounced back by defeating UC Riverside 4-2 in the final game of their regular season on Saturday, April 24 at the SRC Tennis Courts.
With the victory, Cal Poly secured a spot as the No. 2 seed ahead of the Big West Conference Tournament with a 7-2 conference record and 13-2 overall record.
The Mustangs started the day in doubles play with their duo of redshirt freshman Dominique Stone and redshirt junior Mackenzie Worsnop defeating UC Riverside’s pair of Serina Saltzen and Sydney Tran 6-2 on the No. 3 court.
On the No. 1 court, redshirt sophomores Emily Ackerman and Kim Bhunu maintained the momentum and carried out a 6-3 victory against UC Riverside’s duo of Tia Elpusan and Hahn Pham to clinch the doubles point.
In singles play, Bhunu sustained the upper hand for Cal Poly after winning consecutive sets of 6-1 at the No. 2 spot to extend the Mustangs’ lead to 2-0.
At the No. 4 spot, redshirt freshman Delanie Dunkle added to the Cal Poly lead after winning straight sets of 6-2 and 6-1.
However, the Highlanders fought back to get their first point of the game after defeating Stone 6-4 in the first set and 6-2 in the second set at the No. 1 spot to cut the deficit to 3-1.
In a tough contested match at the No. 5 spot, Ackerman took an early lead after winning the first set 6-1, but ultimately fell after losing 0-6 in the second set and 4-6 in the decisive third set to bring the score to 3-2.
As UC Riverside looked to make its comeback, redshirt freshman Melissa Lamette secured the win for Cal Poly in another hard-fought match. LaMette let go of the first set, suffering a 4-6 defeat, but bounced back to win the second set 6-1 and finished off the third set with a 6-2 victory close the game out at 4-2.
Cal Poly awaits its Big West Conference Tournament opponent taking place in Irvine, California on Thursday, April 29.