ResultsMINNEAPOLIS, MINN. – It's been exactly 12 days since the St. Catherine University tennis team played in a competition. Friday evening, it looked like it had only been a day. St. Kate's picked up where they left off in Florida, beating Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) opponent Hamline University 7-2 in their first match in nearly two weeks.
Despite the long break, the Wildcats did not miss a step in their return to MIAC play. St. Kate's swept doubles play with three victories to go up 3-0 in the dual. No. 1 doubles pair
Mikinzee Salo (Brainerd, Minn. / Brainerd) and
Angie Lorenzen (Mitchell, S.D. / Mitchell) won their sixth consecutive doubles match against Hamline's Jordan Danielson and Maddie Muotka. The top duo for St. Kate's dispatched the Pipers top team 8-1 to open doubles play.
The other two Wildcat doubles teams followed suit. No. 2 team of
Alicia Knoll (Waseca, Minn. / Waseca) and
Julia Sporer (Rogers, Minn. / Rogers) defeated Hamline's Maggie Gibson and Elizabeth Hughes 8-5 while
Jessica Duda (St. Michael, Minn. / St. Michael-Albertville) and
Leah Obert (Inver Grove Heights, Minn. / Simley) won the final doubles match of the evening 9-8 in a 1-0 tiebreaker.
St. Kate's was just as strong in singles play as they were in doubles, especially the top three players. Salo, Knoll, and Lorenzen all won in straight sets to seal the victory for the Wildcats. No. 1 Salo dropped only three games in her singles match against Danielson to win by final scores of 6-2, 6-1. Knoll won at the No. 2 singles spot 6-4, 6-4, while
Lorenzen took the match in the three spot 7-5, 6-3.
Obert also beat her opponent in straight sets at the No. 6 singles position. She defeated Gibson 6-0, 7-5 to earn St. Kate's their seventh point of the evening.
Duda and Sporer also competed for the Wildcats at the No. 4 and No. 5 singles spots against the Pipers. At the No. 4 spot, Duda won the first set against Lilli Denison 6-4 before Denison fought back and one set two by the same score, forcing the tiebreaker. Duda fought throughout the deciding set, but ultimately fell 11-9 to lose the match 6-4, 4-6, 9-11.
Sporer dropped the first set against Hughes before winning set two to force a tiebreaker. Like Duda, though, Sporer was unable to come out on top in the final set, falling at the No. 5 singles spot 2-6, 6-2, 6-10.
With the win against Hamline, St. Kate's improves to 8-5 overall and 3-3 in MIAC play. With only six games remaining in the regular season, the Wildcats will face one of their biggest challenges on Saturday, as they host Gustavus Adolphus College at 6 p.m. at the University of Minnesota Baseline Tennis Center.
