No. 10 Loyola gets past No. 14 Louisiana Christian

NEW ORLEANS – The City Park Tennis Center played host to another top-15 NAIA women's tennis matchup Wednesday, as the No. 10 Loyola Wolf Pack took on the No. 14 Louisiana Christian Wildcats. In one of the closest matches of the year, where five of the six singles courts went to a deciding third set, the Wolf Pack pulled out the win, 6-1. 

Loyola (6-4, 3-0 SSAC) won on the top two doubles courts to take the doubles point, adding singles wins on courts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. 

Doubles competition looked a little different for the Wolf Pack, as Loyola's two ranked singles players, Micaela Ponce and Presha Shanthamoorthi, teamed up at No. 1 doubles to get a 6-4 win. Graduate students Avery Frierson and Adele Fereres, who maintain a top-10 ITA doubles ranking after representing at the ITA Cup in the fall, joined together on the No. 2 court Wednesday for the first time since October. They were able to clinch the doubles point for the Pack with a 6-4 win.

Louisiana Christian got a straight-sets win at the No. 5 spot to start singles competition, but that match was an outlier as every other court went the distance. Frierson dropped the first set but woke up in the second, dominating the final two sets to win 2-6, 6-2, 6-1. Fereres won the first set in her match but then lost a close second before winning the third, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3. 

With the Wolf Pack up 3-1 in the match, Shanthamoorthi lost a 7-5 second set before a perfect 6-0 finish in the third to clinch the team win. Micaela Ponce came back to win a third set in her match as well, and Sofia Amodu won the first set and a third-set super tiebreak to close the match on a high note. While the various third sets were playing out, Bianca Harris also won an exhibition match 8-3. 

The Wolf Pack will resume the SSAC schedule on Wednesday in the team's final home match of the season, taking on the University of Mobile Rams. It's also Senior Day at the City Park Tennis Center, as the Pack will honor seniors Micaela Ponce, Juliette Finch, Caitlin Wangard-Siles and graduate students Adele Fereres and Avery Frierson. 

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Results

No. 10 Loyola – 6

No. 14 Louisiana Christian – 1

Doubles
1. Ponce/Shanthamoorthi (LOYNO) def. Sandy/Mikhailova (LCU) 6-2
2. #10 Fereres/Frierson (LOYNO) def. Callejo/Coelho Rodrigues (LCU) 6-4
3. Uchiyama/Ferrer Martinez (LCU) def. Amodu/Finch (LOYNO) 0-6
Order of finish: 3, 1, 2

Singles
1. #45 Micaela Ponce (LOYNO) def. Elizaveta Mikhailova (LCU) 2-6, 7-5, 6-3
2. Avery Frierson (LOYNO) def. #60 Raquel Coelho Rodrigues (LCU) 2-6, 6-2, 6-1
3. Adele Fereres (LOYNO) def. Valeria Callejo (LCU) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3
4. #42 Presha Shanthamoorthi (LOYNO) def. #51 Ana Sofia Ferrer Martinez (LCU) 6-2, 5-7, 6-0
5. Akari Uchiyama (LCU) def. Avrora Volkova (LOYNO) 6-4, 6-2
6. Sofia Amodu (LOYNO) def. Farren Allysia Sandy (LCU) 7-5, 6-7 (7-9), 10-7 
7* Bianca Harris (LOYNO) def. Claudia García Iniesta (LCU) 8-3
Order of finish: 5, 2, 3, 4, 1, 6

*Exhibition