After coming off a big victory against No. 51 Missouri, the Mississippi State Lady Bulldog tennis team (8-13, 2-11 SEC) prepares to host the 2013 SEC Women’s Tennis Championship, beginning this Wednesday at the A.J. Pitts Tennis Centre.
The Lady Bulldogs posted a 4-2 win against the Tigers this past Sunday in the final regular season game of the year.
In a news release, head coach Daryl Greenan said he was extremely happy with his team’s performance against the Tigers Sunday
“We fought extremely hard today and it was a great win over a very good Missouri team,” Greenan said. “(Alexandra) Perper and (Georgiana) Patrasc were tough as nails and Sarai (Flores) did a tremendous job playing within herself. Rosie (Dion) had a chance to end the match much sooner, but she really dug deep to win the tiebreaker to clinch. It was a very solid effort on every court for us today, and it is a good feeling when that happens.”
The turning-point in the match was when Patrasc came back from down 4-0 in the first set against Cierra Gaytan-Leach of Missouri to win that set and the next one 7-5, 7-5.
The No. 12 seed Lady Bulldogs will face-off against the No. 13 seed Missouri Tigers in the first round of play Wednesday. This will be the Lady Bulldogs first time since 2001 to host the SEC Women’s Tennis Championship, and emotions are sure to be running high as they attempt to defend their home court.
This will be an all-new experience for Missouri Tigers as they participate in their first ever SEC Women’s Tennis Championship since their move from the Big 12 conference last year.
The winner of the match between the Lady Bulldogs and the Tigers will go on to face No. 5 seed Tennessee Volunteers Thursday at 11 a.m., and the winner of that will advance to play No. 4 seed Alabama, who has a “double-bye” in the tournament.
Shealy Molpus, junior communication major and women’s tennis sports information director, coordinated this year’s tournament and said planning the event was a major time commitment.
“Preparing for this tournament has definitely been time and labor intensive, but thanks to the help of Hunter (Richardson) and the rest of the (SIDs), I know the hard work will be worth it,” she said.