The first weeks of spring competition brought tremendous highs and disappointing lows for Vandal women’s tennis.
The team suffered a 7-0 loss to the WSU Cougars Thursday just two days after sweeping Lewis-Clark State College.
Coach Daniel Pollock said the final match score didn’t portray exactly how the afternoon in Pullman played out, because some of the matches were actually competitive.
“It can’t be all doom and gloom. There were definitely some positives that came out of it but you never want to lose 7-0 when you play,” Pollock said.
In the first doubles match of the day, Idaho’s Vicky Lozano and Betty Flores defeated the number one doubles pair from WSU, Luidmila Vasilieva and Elizaveta Luzina, 9-7. But Molly Knox and Ale Lozano fell just short against Andjela Kankaras and Olga Kusilovich losing 9-8 (7-5) after having a match point.
Pollock said he believes the momentum changed at that point.
“We’re going to have to learn to deal with that throughout the season,” Pollock said. “If you go out and lose the doubles point we just have to get right back up again and go out and play singles.”
The Vandals could not finish a singles match on top either. Lozano met Vasilieva and lost in three sets but Pollock saw improvement from matches when the two met in the fall at the Cougar Classic.
“Vicky’s loss to Vasilieva was a good match in the fall, but not nearly as competitive as it was this time around so there is definitely some progress there,” Pollock said.
Pollock said he also saw improvement in the doubles matches, compared to when the team met a few of the WSU pairings in the fall season.
“The doubles win that we got at No. 1 is a fantastic win, they blew us away in the fall,” Pollock said. “They are ranked No. 10 in the region and have already beaten several nationally ranked teams. So that win was great.”
Pollock said he knew this match-up would not be similar to that against LCSC, because WSU is a much stronger and significantly deeper team.
“As much as it would be fantastic to go over there and beat WSU, its great practice for us to see what a team like that looks like and where we have to be,” Pollock said.
While WSU may have more experience, Pollock said he was proud of how the the team played.
“Betty at No. 6, that’s a very deep team so their No. 6 is really good. And Sophie (Vickers) played up a spot at No. 3 and she had a good chance at winning that match but fell just short,” Pollock said.
Pollock was pleased with how his players handled the whole situation and said they competed hard, like always.
“One thing I can say and I can guarantee for the entire season is we definitely did not get out-competed,” Pollock said. “They competed super hard — they weren’t overwhelmed by the situation and a couple of them just ran into some really tough match-ups.”
After the match, Pollock told the team to keep the season in perspective.
“It’s not conference, it’s out of region, it’s the second match of the year. We need be our best in April, not in January,” Pollock said.
The team knows that this match-up was not nearly as important as next week’s contest against Montana, and Pollock said playing such a high-caliber team was great practice.
“Some of the things — especially coming out of doubles — were positive. So we can kind of move forward looking into next week’s matches,” Pollock said.
Idaho takes on Seattle University Friday in Lewiston and then will play two matches Sunday in Pullman against Montana and Portland State. Pollock said he hopes for a better crowd turnout now that the weather has subsided.
“The weather was pretty terrible. I don’t even think a lot of WSU fans even made the walk just because it was so cold,” Pollock said.