Eagles blanked by #22 North Georgia
DAHLONEGA, Ga. – The road-opener for Carson-Newman as the Eagles fell to 22nd-ranked North Georgia team, 9-0, on Sunday afternoon.
DAHLONEGA, Ga. – The road-opener for Carson-Newman as the Eagles fell to 22nd-ranked North Georgia team, 9-0, on Sunday afternoon.
The Nighthawks now have eight consecutive victories over C-N since 2010, blanking them for the first time in that span.
Carson-Newman (0-2) fell in all three of the doubles matches, not being able to score more than two points in each of the sets.
Cibeles Zuddy and Adrienne Bofinger opened the day at the No. 3 spot with a steep 8-1 win over Hannah Price (Knoxville, Tenn.) and Sydney Ledington (Corbin, Ky.) The match marked the first for Ledington since 2017.
The Nighthawks (4-1) then looked for the ITA's seventh-ranked doubles tandem of Felicia Baratta and Holly Bennett to keep things moving which they did. The duo took an 8-2 win over Jill Corsato-Owsianka (Germany) and Abby Reis (Des Moines, IA), moving them to 1-1 on the season.
Doubles play closed out with Ali Harris (Crossville, Tenn.) and Alisa Liashova (Ukraine) also falling 8-2 against Vaishali Jorge and Emma Etelalahti.
All six of the doubles matches on the day were decided in pairs of sets.
Bofinger kept momentum on UNG's side with back-to-back 6-1 wins over Corsato-Owsianka at the No. 1 spot.
Not to be outdone, Jorge also took a commanding match over Harris, winning in straight 6-2, 6-1 sets.
The No. 2 spot saw Reis take on the 41st-best player in the nation in Baratta, falling 6-4 and 6-1, pushing the Nighthawks lead to 6-0.
Much of the same happened for the remainder of the day as fourth-seeded Price battled against Bennett but could not make anything of her efforts, falling 6-4 and 6-3.
At the sixth-seed, Klara Vuckovic (Germany) lost straight sets to Laura Van Der Hage, 6-3 and 6-2.
The closest match of the day came at the No. 5 matchup of Zuddy and Liashova. Zuddy cruised to a 6-0 win in the first set, but Liashova would not go quietly in the second, ultimately losing 7-6.
Carson-Newman now looks ahead to back-to-back days of matches early in the week, the first of which coming on Tuesday as the team travels to Athens, Tenn. to take on an NAIA opponent in Tennessee Wesleyan. That match will begin at 1:30 p.m. at the Tennessee Wesleyan tennis facility.
