After the first day at the Western Michigan's BroncoInvitational the women's tennis team was already behind. Only thedouble teams of Melissa Roach and Katie Owans and Jenny Batty andSusan Kelly were able to win in two of the first days 18matches.
"We pulled almost all Big 10 teams for Friday," coach Kathy Bullsaid. "That was tough."
Illinois was added at the last minute when Drake withdrew fromthe tournament.
"We were overwhelmed," Bull said. "We didn't expect Illinois tobe in the tournament. We didn't even find out they had been addeduntil we arrived [in Kalamazoo] Thursday night."
Roach and Owans were able to score an 8-1 in Flight A to score avictory over a team from Eastern Michigan before falling to theITA's #28 team of Karie Schlukebier and Linda Tran from IndianaUniversity. They were eliminated by a team from Illinois onSaturday and fell to 1-2 overall.
Batty and Kelly went 2-2 in Flight B doubles after victoriesover Marquette's Kristen Minowski and Dominika Dabrowski on Fridayand Eastern Michigan's Yang Kansuthi and Marijina Adzic onSaturday.
Both Roach and Owans were eliminated in the first day of FlightA singles competition. They both won their matches in the Loser'sConsolation Bracket.
In Flight B Singles, Batty went 2-2 after losing to the firstround, and then to Western Michigan's Rittyia Hirenrat in the oneloss bracket finals. Jessica Thompson went 1-3, also losing toHirenrat.
The Cardinals did much better in Flight C, with Jill Wieman andKelley advancing to the one loss finals.
"Jill Weiman was under the weather but she came out and playedgood tennis," Bull said. "She pulled out two really tough singlesmatches."
The team went 10-10 on Saturday and 3-8 on Sunday after going2-16 on Friday.
"I saw changes from Friday to Sunday and that's what you hopefor," Bull said.
The team has a week off before Ball State's CardinalInvitational.
"Hopefully my team learned that the physicalness of the game haspicked up," Bull said. "If we want to improve over last year wehave to physically commitment more."
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