The Pack women’s tennis team beat Texas Tech and Abilene Christian in Lubbock, Texas on Saturday, improving to 13-2 on the season.
Ranked at No. 5 in the country, NC State is off to its best start in program history after its first 15 matches of a season. The team will now look to conference play, as 13 of the remaining 15 matches of the regular season are in the ACC.
Both matches started the same way, a doubles point in favor of the Pack. In both cases, the No. 1 ranked duo in the country in senior Anna Rogers and sophomore Alana Smith won its match, and junior Liz Norman and freshman Lana Mavor won to give an early 1-0 lead.
Against Texas Tech, junior Jaeda Daniel lost her first match of the season, a 6-0, 6-0 defeat against the Red Raiders’ Nel Miller. However, NC State bounced right back and in a big way, taking the next four singles matches to seal its 12th win, 5-2.
Smith, Mavor, Norman and Rogers finished, in that order, all with straight-set wins over their opponent. The final match was played out as No. 30 senior Adriana Reami lost to Texas Tech’s Margarita Skriabina in three sets.
In the later battle with Abilene Christian, the Pack didn’t skip a beat, sweeping all six singles points, most by the same lineup that went in the first match and all in straight sets. The only difference was that freshman Marta Gonzalez-Ballbe got the nod instead of Reami and won 6-3, 6-4.
The women’s tennis team will travel to South Bend, Indiana, Saturday, Feb. 22 to face Notre Dame at noon. Then, it will stop in Louisville, Kentucky, to face the Cardinals on Sunday, Feb. 23 at noon before returning home.
