Lobos Lose 4-1 to No.22 Texas Tech
LUBBOCK, Texas — Bronte Murgett scored a nice win at No. 2 singles, but UNM lost a fierce battle with No. 22 Teas Tech 4-1. The loss dropped UNM to 3-7 on the season, with all seven losses on the road. UNM’s next match is in three weeks, at home on March 8 against Northern Arizona.
The Lobos fell behind 1-0 as the Red Raiders swept the doubles point. Felicity Maltby and Kennedy Bridgforth defeated UNM’s Ruth Copas and Danielle Quevedo 6-2 at No. 1 doubles. At No. 2, Hsiang-Wen “Albie” Huang and Yue Lin “Polly” Chen lost 6-4 to Lana Rush and Olivia Peet. That pushed the match to singles, where UNM stayed in it the whole way.
Murgett evened up the match with a rousing 6-0, 6-3 win at No. 2 singles over Francesca Salta. The moved the match to 1-1, and despite Texas Tech taking the next two, the final three were all close and in doubt. Tech took a commanding 3-1 on the heels of a 6-1, 6-3 win at No. 1 singles. UNM’s Ruth Copas had the unenviable task of facing the No. 30 singles player in Maltby, and although she stayed in the match, Maltby handled Copas. At No. 4 singles, Anto Stoica of Texas Tech defeated UNM’s Quevedo 6-2, 6-3. That left just singles matches at the bottom of the order, and UNM was in all of them.
Despite matches at No. 5 singles and No. 6 singles going to third sets, UNM was defeated when Huang lost at No. 3 singles in a close one. Huang lost to Nell Miller 7-6 (7-2), 6-2 to give Tech a 4-1 win. Had Huang won that first set tiebreaker, the entire match could have gone to UNM.
Natasha Munday at No. 5 bounced back from a 6-1 first set loss to win her second set in a tiebreaker 7-6 (7-4). She was moving to a third set, which is what happened with Chen at No. 6. Chen lost her opening set to Lana Rush 7-5 but won the second, bouncing back for a 6-3 win. Rush was up 2-0 in the third when the match was called.