Griz wrap up fall tennis schedule at UCI
11/17/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
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The University of Montana women???s tennis team wrapped up its fall season playing at the UC Irvine Fall Invitational in Irvine, Calif., last weekend. Competing for the Grizzlies in the three-day tournament were seniors Liz Walker and Martyna Nowak, junior Kayla Moyse and sophomores Amanda and Rebecca Bran.
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Montana will be out of competition until the Grizzlies open their spring dual schedule against MSU Billings and Portland State Jan. 30-31. Those neutral-site matches will be played at Bozeman, Mont.
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Walker and Moyse picked up Montana???s lone singles victories at the invitational, with Walker teaming up with Nowak for one doubles victory and Bran and Bran combining for the other.
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???We knew from the start that the field was going to be very challenging, but that???s why we made the trip down there,??? first-year coach Steve Ascher said. ???The players responded well to the level of play and showed improvement each day and every match. By the third day, every player gave themselves opportunities to get wins against some high-level competition.
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???Even though we didn???t pick up a lot of wins, we did a very good job of competing. That???s going to pay off when we get into dual matches in the spring. We???ll be able to look back at these types of matches and use the experiences to our benefit.???
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Walker earned UM???s only singles victory in nine matches Friday with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over UC Irvine???s Courtney Byron. Earlier in the day, Byron had defeated Northern Arizona???s top singles player, Edit Suhajda in straight sets.
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Moyse picked up the team???s second and final singles victory Friday, downing UC San Diego???s Katie Mulloy, 7-6, 6-1.
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Bran and Bran won their doubles match Saturday, 8-6, against UC Riverside???s Nadia and Yasaman Sakhakorn.
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Walker and Nowak teamed up to win Sunday over UC Irvine???s Stephanie Hammel and Byron, the Anteaters??? top doubles pairing. UC Irvine finished the 2008 spring season ranked No. 63 nationally.
