Lady Saints Stand Tall in 8-1 Win Over Barton
Seward County Tennis Coach Darin Workman saw the improvement despite the results for his Lady Saints over the past couple of weeks, but Tuesday on the road at Barton, Workman saw the improvement finally pay off as the Lady Saints walloped Jayhawk rival Barton 8-1 to even up their season record at 3-3.
Tuesday marked the first time this season that Seward had gone toe to toe with a two year foe as they took on the Lady Cougars of Barton Community College. Seward opened the match up 1-0 after a Barton default to the nation's 2nd ranked pair of Paula Lopez and Paula Coyos at #1 doubles. Barton got a point back with an 8-5 win at #2 doubles to tie the match, but the Lady Saints headed to singles play with a 2-1 lead after Xochitl Gonzalez and Grace Golden held off Becca Brining and Stephanie Langer at #3 doubles by a tiebreaking score of 8-6 (3).
Lopez had an easy day at the office as Barton also forfeited the #1 singles point to her to put Seward up 3-1 and Coyos barely broke a sweat in a 6-0, 6-0 beating of Barbara Codognotto at #2 singles to give the Lady Saints a 4-1 advantage. Seward wrapped up the team win as Naomie Bukassa knocked off Kelly Beauer 6-3, 6-0 at #4 while Kellyn Peters picked up her first win as a Lady Saint at #3, beating Karli Beck 6-1, 6-3 to make it 6-1 Seward. The matches of the day came at the bottom of the lineup where both Gonzalez and Golden battled back after losing first sets, to win in tiebreakers to give the Lady Saints two more points to finish off the Cougars 8-1.
Seward gets back to the .500 mark on the season at 3-3 while they push their individual records over .500 at 29-25 for the first time this season.
The Lady Saints will look to pick up their second straight Jayhawk Conference win on Saturday when they travel to 8th ranked Cowley to play the Tigers in an early start in Arkansas City.