North Little Rock – The Central Arkansas Sugar Bears returned to the friendly and, more importantly, warm and dry, confines of the Burns Park Tennis Complex on Sunday morning, playing host to the Missouri State Bears. The Sugar Bears emerged victorious, picking up their fourth straight win with a 6-1 defeat of Missouri State.

As they have all season long, the Sugar Bears (5-2) staked themselves to an early lead, winning two of three doubles contests to grab a 1-0 lead. QiLi Ma and Rada Manataweewat kicked things off at the number three slot, taking out Fati Khamissi and Alexia Meyer 6-3 for their fifth consecutive win. After the Bears evened it up thanks to a 7-6 (6) win from Anelisse Torrico and Phoebe Boeschen at the number two slot, Pornpawee Pramethong and Marli Van Heerden secured the point by picking up their third win of the season, edging out Alye Darter and Ellie Burger 7-6 (5).

Central Arkansas would ride the momentum of the doubles point into singles play, winning five of six to slam the door on any thought of a rally from Missouri State (3-3). Van Heerden got things going for UCA, moving to 5-0 on the year with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Abbey Belote at the number six slot, before Amiru Shimoguchi won her fourth straight decision, taking out Burger 6-3, 6-4 in the number five contest. Pramethong would defeat Darter 6-1, 7-5 in the number one match, and Hee-Jin Oh picked up a 6-4, 6-1 win over Khamissi in the number four match to push her winning streak to three. Chunan Xiang added a 7-5, 6-3 win over Torrico in the number two match, before Boeschen gave Missouri State its only point of the day with a  1-6, 6-1, 7-5 win in the number three match.

"Missouri State is a good team; we barely beat them last year and they have everyone on their team back this year, so I knewit was going to be tough," said UCA head coach Casey Wharton. "It started in doubles, where I thought we really needed the point to feel good about our chances in singles. We barely won, but that momentum carried over into singles. I think without it, things would have been very different. I'm proud of the team because we have played well as a team all year when singles started. I'm excited to see what next week looks like when SIUE comes to us."

The Sugar Bears close out a four-match homestand with their final non-conference tune-up match, hosting SIU-Edwardsville at 9:00 AM next Sunday morning. UCA will then open Southland Conference play on Sunday, March 4^th, traveling to Abilene, Texas to take on the Abilene Christian Wildcats.