Lopez & Coyos Dominate Metro State Invitational Once Again
For the second straight year, Seward County's Paula Lopez and Paula Coyos painted the Metro State Invitational Tournament in Denver, Colorado completely green and white. A year after combining to go 10-0, winning tournament titles in both singles and doubles in the Flight A draw, the duo repeated, each reaching the finals in the top draw, where they shared the singles championship before blowing away the competition in the Flight A doubles draw to win their second straight title there as well.
To put it quite simply, the Lady Saints dominated the Flight A draw of the tournament. Paula Lopez breezed to a pair of wins on day one of the tournament, drilling Jade Goodyear of Montana State-Billings 6-0, 6-1 in the first round and Katie Kirby of Colorado Mesa 6-2, 6-3 in the second round to easily reach the semifinal round. Paula Coyos followed suit, winning a 6-1, 6-2 decision over Fiona Cerf of Colorado College in her opening match before taking a three setter 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 over Courtney Wright of Metro State to make her way to the semis. In the round of four Lopez picked up a 7-5, 6-2 win over Patricia Maya of Colorado State-Pueblo to reach the finals and Coyos took care of business on the other side of the bracket, downing Sierra Strapper of Air Force 6-4, 6-0 to make it an all Seward County final for the second straight season. To conserve their energy for doubles play, the duo once again chose to split the tournament title as co-champions.
The Lady Saints struggled in Flight B play, losing all four matches on day one of the tournament. On Sunday though, Jackie Arnold was able to pick up a 6-3, 0-6, 10-7 win over Gillian Hyde of Colorado College to put the Lady Saints on the board in the B bracket.
In Flight C action Seward had trouble getting anything rolling as well, going 0-5 while winning 1 or less games in 9 of the 10 sets.
Lopez & Coyos teamed up to try to defend their 2013 tournament title in the Flight A doubles bracket. They got off to a hot start, blanking Vujosevic/Love of Metro State 8-0 and moved on to the semifinals with an 8-1 breeze over Cerf/Edman of Colorado College. In their semifinal match they took on Patenko/Hatcliff of NCAA Division I Air Force, hammering them 8-2 to advance on to the finals. In the finals the Lady Saints took on another Air Force duo as they went toe to toe with Strapper/Beachy. It was another lopsided win for the Seward pair as the Argentinian's easily defeated the freshman pair for the Falcons 8-2 to bring home their second straight Metro State Invitational Championship.
The Lady Saints had two other doubles teams in action, but both failed to win their opening match.
Overall on the weekend the Lady Saints finished 11-13 as a team, getting a 10-0 showing from Lopez and Coyos in Flight A action.
METRO STATE INVITATIONAL DAY ONE RESULTS
METRO STATE INVITATIONAL DAY TWO RESULTS
The Lady Saints will now turn their sights to the ITA Regional Tournament on Friday in Oklahoma City where they will compete for a chance to qualify for the 2014 ITA National Tournament in Fort Myers, Florida in October.