Lobos Hand Falcons First Home Loss, Win 4-1
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Whenever teams defeat the U.S. Air Force Academy, the punny headlines tend to show up.
Air Force Grounded. Winning Team Soars Past Air Force. Falcons’ Wings Clipped. You get the point. For New Mexico’s 4-1 win over Air Force, there is no pun needed for a headline. It was just stunning.
Stunning in the fact that the Lobos put a damper on Air Force’s Senior Day. Stunning in the fact that Air Force was undefeated at home, entering the match at 11-0, going an incredible 60-7 in those 11 matches. Stunning in that Air Force was 21-1 on the season entering the match. It was just stunning overall, except maybe to the Lobos themselves.
Entering the match on a nice streak of its own, UNM had won eight of the last nine entering the match and knew coming in that a win could potentially lock up a bye in the first round of the Mountain West Tournament next week in San Diego. UNM entered with confidence, and despite a doubles point loss, that confidence didn’t waver. UNM did take one doubles match, with Bronte Murgett and Natasha Munday winning their seventh straight doubles match and improving to 15-1 on the year. But, that was all UNM got, so it was Air Force up 1-0 heading into singles.
It marked the fifth time in the last seven matches that UNM lost the doubles point, but UNM came back with strong singles play to win three of those other four matches, and Friday was no different.
Murgett, who is white-hot on the court, won her 10th straight match, tying everything up at 1-1 with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Elizabeth Barnickel at No. 2 singles. That win was Murgett’s 18th of the season against just four losses. Hsiang-Wen Huang then gave UNM the lead for good with a 6-3, 6-3 win at No. 3 singles, making her 7-3 in her last 10 matches, including four in a row.
Up 2-1, UNM quickly closed it out. Danielle Quevedo put UNM on the brink with a 7-5, 6-1 win at No. 4 singles, and that Munday ended it, winning 6-4, 6-4 at No. 5 singles over Ash Harvey. Ruth Copas at No. 1 singles dropped her first set but was up 6-5 in the second, and Yue Lin Chen also dropped her first set but was in a tiebreaker when the match ended. That denied her a chance for a team-leading 23rd singles win.
NOTES: Combining singles and doubles, Murgett is now 37-7 on the season.