University of Northern Iowa
Milwaukee
UNI Extends Home Win Streak to 9 With 5-2 Victory Over UWM
3/14/2014 1:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
WATERLOO, Iowa – The University of Northern Iowa women's tennis team won its ninth consecutive home match with a 5-2 win over the visiting Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers on Friday at the Black Hawk Tennis Club.
UNI improved to 9-6 on the season. The Panthers are a perfect 9-0 at home and the nine-match home-court win streak is the longest since the Panthers put together a 14-match home-court win streak that began at the close of the 2004-05 season and carried over into the 2005-06 campaign.
“This was a big win for us today,” UNI head coach Daniel Finn said. “Milwaukee has a very good program and they have produced some very good results this year. To take the doubles point the way we did really changed the momentum of this match and it swung in our favor.”
UNI got the scoring underway with a victory at No. 3 singles from Krissy Lankelma and Sydney Wolfe. It was Lankelma's 80th career victory moving her into No. 4 all-time on UNI's doubles' wins list.
The Panthers clinched the doubles point at No. 1 doubles in a back-and-forth affair. UNI's Jieke Stroobant and Erica Medlin traded breaks early with Milwaukee's Dana Shannon and Diana Tokar. UNI was trailing 5-4, when Medlin and Stroobant reeled off four wins in five games to take the match, 8-6.
Although UNI had clinched the doubles' point, the Panthers's No. 3 doubles duo of Elvira Lopez and Astrid Santos rallied from a 7-5 deficit to force a tiebreaker. Lopez and Santos took the tiebreaker over Milwaukee's Hayley Marshall and Alysa Straub, 7-3, for the 8-7 victory allowing UNI to sweep all three doubles matches.
UNI would go won to win four of the six singles matches for the 5-2 team victory. UNI received wins from Medlin at No. 2 singles, Lopez at No. 3 singles, Santos at No. 4 singles and Lankelma at No. 5 singles. It was Lankelma's 71st career singles victory. Lankelma ranks No. 7 all-time at UNI in singles' victories.
“We had nearly two weeks off between matches and some might think that would be a blessing at this point in the season but it can also be a curse,” Finn said. “It is hard to just get the energy level up going out of the gates when you have had that long of a break from playing an opponent. I'm very proud of the ladies tonight and the way they handled the big moments today against Milwaukee. We did a great job of identifying them and playing really well during those big moments – that alone shows the growth of this team. They trust the system and pout it to work in the big moments.”
UNI will be off for two weeks with its next action set for March 28 at Creighton and March 30 at Drake.
NOTES: UNI improved to 11-2 all-time vs. Milwaukee … UNI has beaten Milwaukee in nine consecutive matchups … Milwaukee fell to 4-6 overall.
Players Mentioned
