March 20, 2008

San Jose, CA (UWIRE) -- The Spartan women were corraled into a loss by the University of Wyoming Cowgirls 4-3 to end their streak of three straight match victories.

"I'm very proud of the girls," said head coach Anh-Dao Nguyen-Church. "It was a hard fought match. We could have pulled this match out. Just little points here and there."

All three Spartan doubles teams lost in pro-sets 8-3, 8-6, 8-3, giving the first point of the match to the Cowgirls.

Jennifer Williams, the No. 6 singles player for the Spartans, was the first to lose 6-2, 6-4 to Wyoming's Brittany DeFelice.

"I actually played really well," Williams said. "She's just a backboard."

Ashley Tavita, the Spartans No. 1 player was next to fall, losing to Corina Lazar 7-6, 6-2.

The match was punctuated by speeding shots crossing inches over the net and impressive volleys that the eye could barely follow.

"It was tough to handle her pace," Tavita said. "I tried to keep up, but she came out on the top."

Amber Silverstone scored the first win for the Spartans on Wednesday when she prevailed against Wyoming's Rebecca Berger 7-5, 6-4. It was is Silverstone's fifth straight singles match win.

"She was a strong opponent," Silverstone said. "I kept fighting.

I wasn't disillusioned when she came in and hit winners. I just kept going for it."

Nguyen-Church complimented Silverstone on her consistent play.

"She has been playing extremely well," she said. "She practices hard, she's just amazing. In doubles she starts off slow, but once she gets that doubles out of the way, in her singles she's a totally different person."

Silverstone was followed by Silvana Dukic who defeated Wyoming's Michelle Brown 6-0, 1-6, 6-2. Though Dukic dominated the first set, she stumbled during her second.

"She was taking her sweet time during the whole second set," Dukic said, "and it just kind of threw me off."

Dukic said another factor in her second set loss was that the balls had started to die, so her shots weren't as powerful as they had been in the first set.

Marathon rallies between the two lasted up to a minute with almost 50 returns between the women.

Picking herself up from her loss, Dukic was able to find her stride and proceeded to run rough shod over Brown.

"And then the third set -," she said, "new balls, and then I knew it was mine."

Dana Popescu the No. 5 singles player for SJSU, lost a nearly three-hour match 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 to Sarah Summerfield.

"I think I improved a lot," Popescu said. "I'm very frustrated because I set up the point really well, and I kind of tend to miss the last shot sometimes."

The last match to finish was SJSU's Sanda Hadzisabic versus Wyoming's Carly Van Hollen.

Though Wyoming had already won the match, Hadziasabic fought on for another 10 minutes and eventually won 7-6, 6-7, 10-8, after a super tie-breaker decided the victor.

The Spartans face off against Cal State Bakersfield on Friday at 1 p.m. at the Spartan Courts.

(C) 2008 Spartan Daily via UWIRE