Women's Tennis | February 21
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The Northern Illinois University women's tennis team won a pair of matches in South Dakota Friday to extend its winning streak to five matches and improve to 10-2 on the 2025 dual match season. The Huskies defeated South Dakota, 4-3, in the first match of the day at the Huether Family Match Pointe before blanking Sioux Falls, 7-0, Friday afternoon.
NIU was forced to win four of the six singles matches versus South Dakota after dropping the doubles point. Freshman
Lucia Yecora started the Huskies' rally with a 6-3, 6-2 win at No. 4 singles over South Dakota's Selena Bird. The teams then split the matches at No. 1 and No. 2 singles with the Coyotes taking the win at No. 1 and NIU's
Maria Dzemeshkevich tying the score at 2-2 with a 6-4, 6-1 win.
USD took a 3-2 lead with a win at No. 5 singles before
Isabella Righi won a second-set tiebreaker, 7-2, to earn a straight set win, leaving it to NIU junior
Nataly Ninova to give the Huskies the win. Ninova eked out a 7-5 tiebreaker win to take the first set over USD's Sorcha Caves at No. 3 singles, then earned the lone service break in the match at 5-3 in the second set en route to a 6-4 win.
"This was a great match for us," said NIU head coach
Eric Burns. "It's really difficult to drop the doubles point and come back to win 4 of 6 singles. We came out a little flat in the doubles, and we knew South Dakota was strong in doubles and they took it to us in a couple of spots.
"We bounced back well in singles. Lucia [Yecora] was huge for us today. She played really well to start the match and got vocal and brought energy and it was contagious, she was a huge part of today."
The Huskies had a much easier time with Sioux Falls, sweeping both the singles and doubles and not allowing the Cougars to win more than two games in a single set. Dzemeshkevich and Ninova both picked up their second singles wins of the day.
NIU next returns home to the Nelson Tennis Center at Chick Evans Field House for a pair of matches next Saturday, March 1. The Huskies will take on Bradley at 10 a.m. and face Cornell at 3 p.m. Admission is free and the general public is invited.
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