TULSA, Okla. – The Central Arkansas tennis team completed its second doubleheader on the young season as they fell 6-1 to the Tulsa Hurricane in the morning but left with a dominating 4-1 win over the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles in the afternoon.
UCA 1, TULSA 6
The Bears started the day against a Tulsa team that was returning from a 23-6 2018 campaign that finished with a NCAA playoff appearance. Marli Van Heerden shined for the Bears in singles play as she defeated Tulsa's Shura Poppe 6-3,6-7 (7-5), 1-0 (10-5) to earn the lone point for her team.
Yada Vasupongchai nearly earned the Bears their second point of the morning, but fell 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-2) in a duel with Megan Hopton. The QiLi Ma/Rada Manataweewat pairing stayed unbeaten after an impressive doubles win over Tulsa's Megan Hopton/Marina Davtyan duo. The win improved the dominant duo to 4-0 on the year.
UCA 4, ORAL ROBERTS 1
Just hours later, Central Arkansas returned to the courts and responded with an all-around team win over Oral Roberts. Mei Ishimura and Van Heerden both improved to 4-1 in singles play with straight-set wins while Manataweewat defeated Golden Eagles' Valentina Gisbert 6-3, 6-4 to help inch the Bears closer to the match victory.
Van Heerden was not done as she paired up with Fuka Nonoyama and cruised to a 6-1 win. Ishimura and Vasupongchai sealed the deal for Central Arkansas after they defeated ORU's pairing of Flavia Balcazar and Jovana Antonijevic 6-3.
Head coach Casey Wharton said he was very pleased with his team's effort, especially after falling to Tulsa in the early matchup.
"We knew today would be a physically demanding day with two matches against two good teams, but it turned out to be a good day," said Wharton. "There are things we can take away from today to help prepare us for next week.
We had to play one of the best ranked teams we've ever played in Tulsa and we scared them. After putting everything out there, we turned around and took care of business.
The fact that we weren't scared of a good team and were locked in against ORU was very encouraging to me."
UP NEXT
The Bears will jump back on the road to Clarksville, Tennessee with a matchup against the Belmont Bruins on February 8. The match is scheduled to begin at 8:45 a.m.
