Baylor University Team Page
NORMAN, Okla. - The 19th-ranked Baylor women's tennis team fell, 4-3, against No. 32 Oklahoma State during the semifinals of the Big 12 Championships on Saturday at the Headington Family Tennis Center.
"We've been two teams all year," head coach Joey Scrivano said. "We were that immature, undisciplined team the first half of the season, and then these last six weeks we were a more mature and disciplined team. Today we were that first team. We were that team that wanted things to come easy, and we didn't really fight that hard in critical stages of matches. You get what you deserve. We deserved to lose today. That's exactly what happened. We did not compete, we did not have the maturity level that it takes to win this tournament, and we got exactly what we deserved."
The loss snaps a nine-match win streak for the Lady Bears as they fall to 16-14 on the season. With the win, Oklahoma State improves to 15-7 on the season. This match is the first time BU has lost in the semifinal round in seven eight trips as the top seed of the Big 12 Championships. Overall, Baylor is 7-6 in the semifinal round.
To kick off doubles action, Alex Clay and Jordaan Sanford had a four-match win streak stopped with an 8-6 loss on court two against OSU's Meghan Blevins and Lorena Gheorge.
Eighth-ranked Ema Burgic and Victoria Kisialeva notched an 8-5 victory against 31st-ranked Malika Rose and Kanyapat Narattana. The victory upped Burgic and Kisialeva's record to 17-3 in the top of the lineup for BU.
With the doubles point coming down to Alex Leatu and Kiah Generette's match on court 3, OSU's Maria Alvarez and C.C. Sardinha would overcome the duo with an 8-6 decision over BU.
This match snapped a 10-match streak of Baylor earning the doubles point in matches.
In singles, BU was able to tie up the match at 1-1 with Kiah Generette's victory on court 3, 6-2, 6-3 against CC Sardinha. Generette improves to 15-9 on the season.
OSU would strike back with a victory of their own on court 4. Maria Biryukova fell to Kanyapat Narattana, 6-4, 6-1.
BU would tie up the match again on court 1, as 10th-ranked Burgic got past 37th-ranked Malika Rose. Burgic took her first set, 6-0, but fell in the second set 6-4. Burgic came back 6-2 in the third set to take the match. Burgic has now won 15 matches in a row, with a 24-6 record against ranked opponents.
The Cowgirls then tied the match on court 5. Alex Leatu lost her match, 7-6(8), 6-4, against Alvarez. Leatu is 5-4 overall when playing in the No. 5 spot of the lineup.
Jordaan Sanford would battle back from a 6-3 first set loss to ultimately win her match on court 2. Sanford won her second set, 6-3, and her third, 6-3, to tie the match at three points apiece. Sanford is 8-2 in her last 10 matches.
The match would come down to Alex Clay's match versus Karyn Guttormsen on court 6. After battling through a first set tiebreak to win by an 8-6 score, Clay would fall in the match with a final score of 6-7(6-8), 6-3, 6-4. The junior fell behind in the third set, 5-1, before coming back to cut the lead to 5-4, but was then unable to hold serve as OSU claimed the contest.
Despite the loss, Baylor leads the all-time series against OSU 17-5. The loss broke a 12-match win streak against the Cowgirls. The last loss for Baylor against OSU was on April 19, 2003.
Baylor will now wait for the NCAA Selection Show on Tuesday to find out its postseason fate.
Follow @BaylorWTennis on Twitter for updates on the team all season.
