The BYU women’s tennis team fell to the University of Denver 3-4 in their home opener on Saturday afternoon.
After Taylah Beckman and Nicolette Poulsen lost the first doubles match (4-6), the Cougars fought back and won the next two matches, ultimately picking up the point. Mayci Jones and Toby Miclat won 7-5, swiftly followed by a tiebreaker win from Natella Nabieva and Savannah Ware (7-2).
BYU head coach Lauren Jones-Spencer was “happy” about the doubles performance.
“We’ve been working on that a lot lately,” Jones-Spencer said. “It was nice to pull out a tight doubles point.”
Poulsen picked up a quick 6-0, 6-2 win in her singles match. Ware quickly lost (1-6, 1-6), followed by Jones (2-6, 3-6), giving the Pioneers the points to tie up the match.
Miclat won a closely contested, drawn out match in a tiebreaker 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 pushing BYU back in front.
Ultimately, it came down to the no. 5 and no. 6 seeded singles matches. Both matches resulted in two set Cougar losses.
Jones-Spencer attributed the loss to personal difficulties.
“In the singles matches that we lost, it wasn’t a matter of them playing better than us, but more about us beating ourselves and reacting negatively,” Jones-Spencer said.
Next the women’s team heads to Columbia, Missouri to face Wichita State on Thursday, Feb. 11 and the University of Missouri on Friday, Feb. 12.
Jones-Spencer was interviewed on BYU Sports Nation this past week. She touched over home court advantage and recruiting among other topics. Here’s the video in case you missed it:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVYo3Sir1Qo&w=560&h=315]
The next home match will be played on Friday March 18th against University of San Francisco at 12pm MST, with free admission and free pizza for the fans. Live video and stats for the match are available on the women’s tennis schedule page
