The last time that the Lady Bulldogs lost the first match of the year to the Lady Bisons of Lipscomb was in 2007. That year, the ladies of A&M won the SWAC. While this could be a very solid year, that’s the only comparison that can be made between the 2007 and the 2009 squads.
Traveling with only 5 players, the Lady Bulldogs knew that in order to compete for the win, they would have to play exceptional tennis throughout the lineup against what has come to be, a very solid Lipscomb team.
In doubles, it was a tale of 2 halves as the #1 and #2 doubles teams seemed to exchange personalities during their matches. The #1 team of Me’Shala Johnson and Brittany Jelks started very slow; quite the contrast to the start of the #2 team of Yemurai Muskwe and Te’Isha Mixon. The Muskwe/Mixon doubles team played long points in the beginning and at one point were in the match at 2-3; however, they weren’t able to sustain the play and fell 2-8.
The Johnson/Jelks team who lost 1-8, did the exact opposite, losing early games rather decisively, but took many of the later games into deuce.
The Lady Bulldogs, down 0-2 starting singles, got a strong performance from Johnson, the lone senior. She was able to keep Lipscomb’s Jann off-balance in claiming a 6-3 first-set win. Jann would regroup and get out to a quick 5-0 lead in the second before winning the second set 6-2. The 3rd set tiebreak and that singles point went to Lipscomb 10-4.
Freshman Te'Isha Mixon, playing in her first collegiate dual match, wasn’t able to pull out a win, falling 2-6, 2-6 to Jackson of Lipscomb.
With the match being clinched, the other ladies pro-set scores were: Jelks 2-8; freshman Jasmine Cherry fell in a hard-fought match 4-8; and Muskwe dropped her match at #5 1-8.
“The scores don’t really reflect it, but I saw some good things,” commented ladies coach Thomas Colvin. “There just weren’t enough of them. At least we’ve got something to start with in working towards being better.”
The Lady Bulldogs travel to Montgomery on January 31 to face the Lady Hornets of Alabama State.
