FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (March 23, 2022) – Despite winning the doubles point and opening singles with five first-set victories, the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks landed in a battle with the Idaho State Bengals Wednesday afternoon.
With five courts trailing in their respective second sets, Northern Arizona's
Mimi Bland,
Ava Neyestani,
Sofia Markova and
Laura Duhl rallied back to complete a 6-1 victory for the Lumberjacks over the Bengals (8-4, 2-1 Big Sky). The win, Northern Arizona's 20th straight at home overall, 28th straight at home in the Big Sky and 28th straight against Idaho State, pushed the Lumberjacks to 2-1 in conference play following last week's win at Sacramento State.
"We definitely started off really, really well and then we dropped that energy. That's why we let them back into those second sets which shouldn't happen," said Lumberjacks head coach
Ewa Bogusz. "The girls responded well in the third sets and Ava didn't even let it get to a third set. I am glad they recognized it and were able to bounce back. But if we see them again and teams of this caliber, they are going to stay in it and we have to keep the energy flowing for a lot longer."
To start the day, Bland and
Annabel Davis put Northern Arizona on the board with the team's first doubles win, 6-2, at No. 1 against Idaho State's Hana Cho and Leah Kuruvilla. The duo, which paired together in England before both arriving at Northern Arizona, have now won back-to-back matches in doubles play.
The pairing of
Gina Dittmann and Neyestani won their fourth straight match this season with a 6-3 victory over Idaho State's Megan Lang-Gould and Alexandra Arkhipov on Court 3 to clinch the first point of the day.
Leading 1-0 heading into singles play, Northern Arizona took commanding control of the match as Dittmann, Bland, Markova, Duhl and Neyestani all won by scores of either 6-2 or 6-3 in their opening sets.
While Dittmann opened her second set with a 3-0 advantage, eventually putting the Lumberjacks ahead 3-1 with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Cho at No. 1, the rest of Northern Arizona's lineup needed to step up to Idaho State's push.
Bland's turnaround came first, as the junior battled back with five consecutive games against Lang-Gould at No. 2. After winning her first set 6-2, Bland trailed 4-1 as she took to the service line. With three games won on serve, Bland also broke Lang-Gould twice. The second of the two wins came at 4-4, pushing Bland back ahead and allowing her to clinch the match at No. 2 6-2, 6-4 before Dittmann finished at No. 1.
Needing just one more victory on the three remaining courts, Northern Arizona would go on to win all three for the 6-1 final score.
Following her 6-3 victory at No. 6 to open the match, Neyestani battled back from her own 3-0 deficit against Arkhipov. After winning a pair of games back-to-back, Neyestani split with Arkhipov over the next four and took the service line down 5-4. With a win on serve and a break point win after taking a 40-0 lead while receiving, Neyestani finished her comeback to clinch the team victory with her serve.
Even at 15-15, Neyestani put together three straight points for the win to improve to 10-0 in Flagstaff during her young career.
"I just knew I had to do one break on her serve," Neyestani said. "I just had to rely on being really solid from the baseline and just keep serving the way I know I can to stay aggressive on the point and be the first one to be on offense. I feel like it was a bit mentally challenging just because I was missing a lot of returns in general."
With the victory secured, Markova and Duhl found themselves in vastly different situations with their third sets.
Markova took a 4-1 lead on her serve at No. 3, and broke Lola O'Lideadha's serve to put herself in position for the victory. Even at 30-30 while serving, Markova put the match away with back-to-back points. From there, all of Northern Arizona's team turned its attention to Duhl's match at No. 5.
Down 1-3 early, Duhl's rally back came after breaking serve against Kuruvilla at 3-5. With each player winning on serve through the final three games of the third set, Duhl and Kuruvilla landed in a deciding tiebreaker with the set at 6-6. Winning back-to-back points after trailing 1-3, Duhl ended up tied with Kuruvilla at three different scores before rattling off a trio of points to take the set and match 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4).
"Every match is important, even though the team match was clinched they knew that. I want them to do the exact same thing when the match is still in the works.
Now in a four-way tie for second in the Big Sky Conference at 2-1, Northern Arizona will face one of those schools to cap of the week in Flagstaff as the Lumberjacks host the Eastern Washington Eagles at 2 p.m. on Sunday. The match is the second half of a doubleheader as the Northern Arizona men's tennis team hosts the Idaho Vandals at 10 a.m. Sunday will also be a Campus Kids Day with all junior players invited to the pair of matches at the Aquatic and Tennis Complex.
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