Concordia Tennis Teams Sweep Hastings
Photo Description: Sophomore Tessa Blough prepares a forearm groundstroke
Photo Credit: Kayla Korb
Madeline Peters
Sower Staff
The Concordia University women’s and men’s tennis teams swept the Hastings College Broncos Saturday afternoon in their first Great Plains Athletic Conference match of the season.
The teams for the doubles portion of the women’s match were sophomore Tessa Blough and freshman Alana Lopez Pagan, freshman Mariana Molano and junior Tara Ferrel and freshmen Ella Dean and Gabrielle Heiser. The first and third teams won their matches handedly 6-2. The second team struggled against Hastings and narrowly won 7-6 in extra rounds.
The same six Bulldogs also competed in the singles competition. Five out of the six won their games in two sets, and Heiser eked out a win in three sets against Bronco Jenna Davison.
The teams for the men’s doubles were freshman Hugo Fuentes and junior Juan Rabellino, freshman Santiago Abadia and junior Eduardo Rojas and sophomores Manuel Rodriguez and Shawn Springer. The second and third teams won their matches 6-2 while the first team went to extra rounds, winning 7-6.
Fuentes, Rabellino, Abadia, Rojas and Rodriguez competed in the singles competition in two sets. Springer did not participate and was replaced by sophomore Luke Johnson, who won his match in three sets.
Coach Cam Long was quite pleased with Saturday’s games saying, “I think we played well as a team. We won every match, so you can’t do better than that. The women this morning may have started off slow, but we got into the match and played very well. Doubles and singles, and then the men took care of business.”
Long has high hopes for the GPAC portion of the season, saying, “We’re off to a good start. I think we’re confident, our next conference match is next week against Morningside. They’re good; they’re gonna put up a fight against us. We’re gonna have to come ready to play, but if all goes well and we play up to our potential we can do big things.”
Both teams have the same record of 7-5 overall and 1-0 in the GPAC. The teams play again on March 28 against Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas. Their game against Morningside University is on April 1 at the Bulldog tennis courts.
