Denton, Texas – The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears hit the road on Saturday, travelling to Denton, Texas to the take on the Mean Green of the University of North Texas. The Sugar Bears fought hard in the majority of their matches on the day, but were unable to find much success, falling to the Mean Green 6-1.

In doubles play, all three matches were hard fought, but the Mean Green (1-0) swept the doubles competition to take a 1-0 lead. UNT's Tamuna Kutubidze and Maria Kononova scored a tight 7-5 win over UCA's Nataly Yoo and Amiru Shimoguchi in the no. 1 match, while Xylia Chunan Xiang and Marli Van Heerden fell to Minying Liang and Laura Arciniegas 6-4 in the no. 2 match. The no. 3 match saw QiLi Ma and Rada Manataweewat suffer a 6-4 loss at the hands of Agustina Valenzuela and Nastya Shestakova.

"Today we played a very good team that I believe will be ranked very soon," said UCA head coach Casey Wharton following the match. "They're young, like us, but very talented, so we knew that it would be difficult today.

"We played them really closely in doubles, and were winning all three matches at one point, but were unable to close any of them out. I think that with time and experience, we will be able to seize those kinds of opportunities."

In singles play, the string of close matches continued, as Kononova took down Yoo 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the no. 1 match, and Kutubidze outlasted Van Heerden 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 in the no. 5 match. Shimoguchi gave the Sugar Bears (1-1) their lone point on the day, defeating Alexis Thoma 6-4, 7-5 in the no. 4 match. Xiang dropped the no. 2 match 6-4, 6-0 to Shestakova, while Ma fell by a tally of 6-4, 6-4 to Liang in the no. 3 match. The no. 6 match saw Manataweewat lose 6-0, 6-2 to Valenzuela.

"We reset for singles, and I thought that we matched up well and had opportunities to win most of our matches," said Wharton. "Nataly played brilliantly at the number one, splitting sets with a very good player, and I thought that she could have pulled it out at any moment. She really fought to the end.

"We had some tough matchups at numbers two and four," Wharton continued. "QiLi played very well against another Chinese player, losing five consecutive game-deciding points in the second set, so that match really could have gone either way. And Amiru is proving to be a great new addition, going out and winning in straight sets today.

"Marli is becoming synonymous with long matches and a fighter's mentality," said the Sugar Bear skipper. "She split sets and went to a third set tie-break, but it didn't go our way.

"I am very pleased with how we put ourselves in positons and created opportunities today, but we just didn't capitalize on them. Next time we will."

Central Arkansas returns opens the home portion of its schedule on Saturday February 6th, hosting Harding at the Central Arkansas Tennis Courts. The match is the first of a four-match homestand, which closes on February 14^th with the Sugar Bears' Southland Conference opener against McNeese State.