Tennis teams each defeat Augustana

The Washburn tennis teams returned to action Saturday afternoon as they hosted Augustana University of South Dakota.

The No. 8 ranked Ichabod women defeated the 26th ranked Vikings 5-2. They won two of the three doubles matches to earn the doubles point and then won four of the six singles matches to finish off the overall win.

The men’s team swept the entire dual matchup winning every match en route to a 7-0 victory.

The day started with women’s doubles competition where two of the three matches were decided by tiebreakers.

The top matchup was between Washburn’s sixth-ranked doubles team comprised of senior Alexis Czapinski and junior Logan Morrissey who battled the No. 3 ranked Viking duo. The highly contested match was decided with the Vikings winning the tiebreaker 7-5 and taking the match 7-6.

Despite coming out on the short end of the match, Morrissey was pleased with the performance.

“I thought we were pretty aggressive,” Morrissey said. “We just missed it by a couple of points, but overall I thought it was good. They’re a solid team.”

Junior Jacqueline Engelbrecht and freshman Svea Crohn downed their opponents quickly, winning 6-0.

The final doubles team of freshman Kinsey Fields and sophomore Maria Soler Valverde battled to win a match deciding tiebreak, 7-1, to claim the match win with a 7-6 victory and clinching the doubles point for the Ichabods.

In singles competition the Vikings struck first when their top player defeated Engelbrecht 6-2, 6-3. Czapinski tied it back up with a 6-3, 6-1 victory in a match that she controlled from start to finish.

“She had a really good forehand and was able to be aggressive with that,” Czapinski said. “I needed to stay in front of the point and ahead of the point to not give her a lot of opportunities, and consistency was really the key there.”

Czapinski did so successfully to pick up the victory.

Morrissey battled in a tough match but fell in first set tiebreak and eventually the match by a score of 7-6 (7-5), 6-3.

The Ichabods won the final three singles matches. Soler Valverde defeated her opponent 7-6 (7-2), 6-2. Crohn won with a score of 6-1, 6-3 and junior Madison Lysaught finished off with a 6-2, 6-2 victory.

On the men’s side, the Ichabods dominated from start to finish as they did not drop a set the entire evening.

In the No. 1 slot, senior Alejandro Valarezo Plaza and junior Paul Haase finished off a victory in quick fashion with a score of 6-2. Sophomores Luke Howard and Raul-Alin Dicu won 6-3, and junior Chase Brill and sophomore Brad Eidenmueller won 6-3 as well.

Off the top in the singles competition, Valarezo Plaza and Dicu each won rather handedly with identical scores of 6-2, 6-2.

Haase then clinched the meet victory 6-1, 6-3. With the win under Washburn’s belt, the final three singles matches were played in one set to eight instead of the full two sets. 

Eidenmueller and Howard both won 8-4 and Brill completed the clean sweep with an 8-6 victory.  

For the men, the win improves their record 7-4 on the season. The women’s victory gave them their seventh win in a row and improved them to 12-1 overall.

Both teams will travel to Emporia next week to take on the Hornets with the women scheduled to play at 2 p.m. on Thursday and the men at the same time on Friday.