Tennis loses to Alabama

By Dan Elledge     2/22/12 6:00pm

Ever since the beginning of the spring season, freshman Natalie Beazant has exceeded expectations. Beazant has proven that when she plays is 1-on-1, she cannot lose. Going into last Friday's match against 21st-ranked University of Alabama, Beazant had amassed a singles record of 7-0. But in this matchup she was going to be tested, as she was playing the 15th-best singles player in America, Alabama sophomore Mary Anne MacFarlane.

Going into singles play, Beazant showed that she was not scared of MacFarlane. Beazant won a hard-fought first set 7-5 to take an early 1-0 lead. It seemed like after that she broke MacFarlane's spirit as she went on to sweep the second set 6-0 to take the match in straight sets and keep her undefeated record alive at 8-0.

However, that was the only bright spot for the Owls, as Alabama was able to destroy Rice in every other aspect of the match. With doubles, Beazant was not able to secure the victory as she and sophomore Domninique Harmath fell to the 39th ranked pairing of Alabama junior Alexa Guarachi and senior Courtney McLane 8-3. Senior Ana Guzman and junior Katie Gater lost their match 8-2, while sophomore Kimberly Anicete and freshman Stephanie Nguyen faced their own problems as they dropped their match 8-4.

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Besides Beazant in singles, all of the Owls were wounded in their individual matches. Harmath fell to Guarachi in two sets, 6-1 and 7-5. Guzman was only able to win one game as she lost, 6-0 and 6-1, to McLane. Anicete and Nguyen each dropped their matches by scores of 6-1 and 6-3. Gater took her match to the third set before it was stopped because Alabama had already secured the victory. Since Gater was losing 1-0 in the third set, she was credited with the loss to officially give Alabama a 6-1 victory.

The Owls were scheduled to play against the University of Alabama at Birmingham on Sunday in their first conference match of the season, but it was postponed because of the tumultuous rain that hit the Birmingham area.

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