Michael Shipma
Sports Editor
Despite entering the postseason as the No. 1 seed in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, the Troy women’s tennis team fell 4-1 in its semifinal matchup against rival South Alabama on Saturday.
The Trojans advanced to the tournament semifinals after topping No. 9-seed Georgia Southern the day before at the Peachtree Tennis Center in Peachtree City, Georgia, but have come to the end of their season with the loss.
In its first-round match against the Eagles, Troy battled its way to a victory after edging Georgia Southern in both phases of the match.
In doubles play, Troy’s Pei Ju Hsieh and Maria Casas Blas won their team the doubles point after winning the tiebreaking match against the Eagles’ Lindsay Truscott and Charlotte Van Diemen 6-3.
Moving forward into singles competition, the Trojans broke another tie in individual wins as Efriliya Herlina defeated Emilia Bujan 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 to give Troy its third singles win out of six games.
The final match of the day between Troy’s Matea Mihaljevic and Georgia Southern’s Van Diemen was in its third set when it was called off early for an unfinished result.
With that match going unfinished and the match previous going to Troy, the top-seeded Trojans came away with the win and advanced to the next round.
It was the end of the line for Troy, though, falling prey to the Jaguars with three total matches going unfinished.
The first of those matches was Jiayuan Xue and Herlina’s doubles match against Alexandria Stiteler and Yu Fujioka, which, even if the Trojans had won, would not have negated the two South Alabama wins completed just prior.
Instead, things got worse for Troy as it saw its season slowly slip away after losing three of six singles matches. Nancy Karaky did steal a match off the Jaguars after beating Maxine Palmen in two sets, but again, it wasn’t enough to overcome the losses and two singles matches which went unfinished.
The Trojans finished their season with an overall record of 9-11 and a 4-2 record in league play.
