No. 38 Cougars fall at No. 72 Dons

SAN FRANCISCO – No. 38 BYU women’s tennis fell on the road at No. 72 San Francisco 4-3 Friday in its second West Coast Conference match.

“We were not mentally tough enough today, and that is what hurt us in our singles,” BYU head coach Lauren Jones-Spencer said. “I was happy with the fight in doubles, but we didn’t continue it in singles unfortunately.”

The Cougars (5-5, 1-1) were first on the board after grabbing the doubles point to start the match. Sophomores Savannah Ware and Nicolette Tran were the first duo off the court after beating the Dons' Thyra Taune and Genevieve McCloskey 6-3. San Francisco (6-4, 1-0) bounced back at No. 1 doubles when Andrea Ka and Marina Nikolic outplayed the Cougar duo of Toby Miclat and Brittanie Eraso 7-5.

With the doubles point up for grabs, seniors Meghan Sheehan-Dizon and Morgan Anderson-Littlewood stepped up for BYU and won in a tiebreaker 7-6 (5).

San Francisco carried the momentum into singles play and took the first two matches. Sheehan-Dizon lost at No. 1 singles to Ka 6-3, 6-1 while Anderson-Littlewood dropped a straight-set match to Sofia Holmberg to give the Dons a 2-1 lead.

The Cougars stormed back to take the next two matchups, giving BYU a 3-2 lead. At No. 6 singles, Erica Valimaki forced a tiebreaker in the first set but eventually fell and lost her matchup with McCloskey 7-6 (7-5), 6-2, tying the match at three. The match’s deciding point came at No. 2 singles where Tran fell to Taune in three sets 7-5, 3-6, 6-2.

The Cougars now travel to Santa Clara for another WCC match on Friday at 12:00 p.m. in Santa Clara.