Taborga Clinches a Thriller 4-3 Over Wyoming
LARAMIE, Wyo. — Nothing like a thriller to open Mountain West play. Sofia Taborga won a third set thriller in a showcase match, playing her third set as the only match left, winning that set 6-4 to give UNM a heart stopping 4-3 victory over Wyoming in the conference opener for both teams. The Lobos have now won 10 of their last 11 Mountain West regular season matches.
Taborga and her opponent Serina Abriola couldn’t even get on a court until it was 2-1 UNM with just four available indoor courts. That, plus her long three-set match put the matches run-time well over four hours. It was all worth it in the end.
UNM didn’t win the doubles point, splitting the first two matches with Maud Vandeputte and Coumba Ben Niangadou winning at No. 2 doubles 7-5. It came down to No. 1 doubles, and with a chance to force a tiebreak, UNM hit just wide as Maria Sodre and Rebekkah Gaines lost 7-5 to Violetta Borodina and Dilnaz Mashabeyeva. That made it 1-0 Cowgirls. With just the four indoor courts, matches started for the first four flights, and UNM’s new singles lineup worked. Rebekkah Gaines, who at one point was playing at No. 1 singles, moved down the ladder into the No. 3 slot, winning her first match there, taking a 6-1, 6-2 straight set victory over Ruby Young.
Vandeputte, playing at No. 1, moved to 3-0 there with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Borodina, and finally Maria Matsoukatidi and Taborga were able to get on the court.
Wyoming evened the match with a 6-3, 7-5 win by Mashabeyeva over Sodre, and they could have gone up 3-2, but Sarah O’Connor, who has played terrifc over the past few weeks, was superb in her second match of the season at No. 2 singles, moving to 2-0 there with a comeback 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 win. That gave UNM the 3-2 lead with just the two matches left. Taborga had won her opening set, but fell in the second right as Elena Trencheva put the finishing touches on a 6-4, 6-4 Wyoming win at No. 5 over Matsoukatidi, and that put the match and a 1-0 conference start on the final set with Taborga and Abriola. Sofia fell behind 4-2 after she was broken at 2-2 and was down 4-2, but she broke back to tie the set at 4-4, and after holding serve, she got a final break for the match at 6-4.
The Lobos stay out on the road and will end their eight-match sojourn away from home with a Sunday 11 am first serve in Fort Collins against the Colorado State Rams. CSU lost 4-0 to Nevada at the Fort Collins Country Club to open the season.
NOTES: Taborga and Vandeputte each have 11 victories, tying with Sodre for the team lead … when Vandeputte and Ben Niangadou teamed up in doubles, they became UNM’s 14th different doubles pairing this season, and Ben Niangadou became Vandeputte’s sixth doubles partner of the season (Taborga, Sodre, Matsoukatidi, O’Connor and Gaines), meaning the only two players she hasn’t played doubles with this season is Allison Romero and oddly, her twin sister Bente, who was her most frequent doubles partner last year.