CHICAGO - The Northern Illinois University women's tennis suffered defeat when it dropped a 6-1 match to No. 32 DePaul on Saturday afternoon, but senior Nelle Youel (Crystal Lake, Ill./Crystal Lake Central) improved her undefeated record this season to 18-0 by winning her singles match in three sets against Yuliya Shupenia in the No. 1 matchup.

That individual victory by the NIU all-time wins leader gave the Huskies (8-2) their only team point of the match against the nationally ranked and defending Big East champion Blue Demons (11-3) at Lakeshore Sport & Fitness in Chicago, Ill.

Youel and doubles partner Cristina Alvarez (Zaragoza, Spain/Cristorey and Sagrado Corazon de Jesus) didn't finish their doubles match for the second consecutive time, maintaining their 8-0 record as a pair,as DePaul locked up the doubles point by winning the No. 2 and No. 3 contests.

The Huskies dropped the No. 2 through No. 6 singles matches, but NIU women's tennis head coach Tanya Gombera wasn't discouraged, knowing that her team competed hard against one of the top teams in all of college tennis.

"I felt the team gave a good effort against a very strong DePaul team," Gombera said. "We were a few points from taking the doubles point today but unfortunately fell short. I thought in singles we competed really hard, and I am really proud of the effort today."

NIU will now head south to Florida for a trio of matches over spring break. The Huskies will face Bucknell on March 10 in Orlando, Fla., before meeting Bethune Cookman and Hampton on March 11 in Daytona, Fla.

Doubles
No. 1:N. Youel and Alvarez (NIU) unf. vs. Fargas and Kling (D)
No. 2:Mitrea and Shupenia (D) def. Malkin and E. Youel (NIU)
No. 3:Sufi and Fisher (D) def. Gates and De La Torre (NIU)

Singles
No. 1:N. Youel (NIU) def. Shupenia (D)
No. 2:Lancranjan (D) def. Alvarez (NIU)
No. 3:Fargas (D) def. Malkin (NIU)
No. 4:Kling (D) def. De La Torre (NIU)
No. 5:Mitrea (D) def. Dekkinga (NIU)
No. 6:Sufi (D) def. Gates (NIU)

--NIU--