The Oglethorpe women's tennis team fought a tough battle against the regionally-ranked Coe Kohawks Sunday at the Lake Cane Tennis Center in Orlando, Florida, but fell 5-4 in the end. After coming back from 4-2 down to tie the dual match at 4-4, the Stormy Petrels fell in the final match at No. 5 singles to give the Kohawks the win. The result dropped Oglethorpe to 2-1 on the season.
The match started with Coe taking two of the three doubles contests. Junior Halley Sickling and sophomore Shannon Cruz fell 8-4 in the No. 2 doubles match while freshman Taylor Cranford and senior Ingrid Wilcox came back with an 8-5 win over their opponents at No. 3. Coe responded with a back-and-forth victory over freshman Hannah Dattilo and junior Caroline Johnson at No. 1, 9-7, to take a 2-1 lead into the singles competition.
The two teams continued to go back and forth as the singles portion of the dual match played out. Cranford won the No. 3 match 6-2, 6-3 to tie the dual match at 2-2, but Coe responded with a pair of victories at No. 2 and No. 1 over Dattilo and Johnson, respectively. Dattilo fell 6-0, 6-4 and Johnson dropped her match 6-4, 6-3. Those two results brought Coe to within a single match of clinching the day, but Oglethorpe responded with a win from sophomore Delaney Abood at No. 6, 6-1, 6-2, to pull closer, and Cruz defeated her opponent 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 at No. 4 to tie the proceedings. That meant that everything rode on the No. 5 match, featuring Wilcox. She came back from tiebreak defeat in the first set to take the second set, 6-2. However, she fell in a third-set tiebreak, 8-6, after being up 6-3 with a chance to put it away.
"This was a tough loss," said Oglethorpe head coach Peter Howell, "but I thought we learned a lot from this match. This was the first matchup we've had against a regionally-ranked team this year, and I think we showed we can compete with these teams. We'll see how we respond coming back tomorrow."
The Petrels will take on Methodist at 11:30 a.m. from Orlando on Monday, then will turn around with two matches on Tuesday, as they'll compete against Ursinus and Aquinas.
