Vikings fall to Lumberjacks

The women’s tennis team suffered a 6-1 loss to the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks yesterday morning in Flagstaff. Northern Arizona played its first game outdoors last week, but unfortunately for Portland State, the Jacks headed indoors for this week’s match—a court notorious for its difficult playing surface.

Portland State lost the opening point in doubles, as the Jacks took the Vikings in a clean sweep. The doubles point is an element of the match that both head coach Jay Sterling and senior captain Anya Dalkin identified prior to the match as a “key aspect” of focus for the team to start their momentum.

Unfortunately for the Viks, NAU seemed to have the same goal. Their one and two positioned players won in set scores of 8-2, and 8-1 respectively. But it was Vikings’ third seed that made a showing for the visiting team. Junior Mash Los and partner junior Marti Pellicano sent their doubles match into a tiebreaking set, although it was the Jacks that had the final say, winning the tiebreaker 7-2.

The singles competition started off in the opposite fashion as the doubles, as freshman Yuki Sugiyama won her opening match. The freshman won the opening frame 6-3, but NAU hard-hitter senior Edit Suhajda answered back and reversed the second set score in her favor 3-6. Sugiyama had an answer of her own, showing her resiliency as she rallied to take the match with a final 6-3 set score.

Two big wins by the Lumberjacks followed Sugiyama’s performance, but at the fourth position the Viks saw another close match. Pellicano came out with the same intensity she did in her doubles round. She lost her first set by just two points, 7-5, but the junior came back winning a set of her own 4-6. Still, the Jacks had the final say as senior Yumi Hasegawa grabbed the deciding frame 6-4.

The loss set PSU’s record at 4-11 overall and 1-4 in conference. The loss became the fourth in a losing streak for the Viks, although the first three losses were against non-conference opponents. PSU needs to find the intensity it had in its first conference win against Northern Colorado, as the team goes into its final three matches of the season.

In order to qualify for the postseason, the Vikings would need to win their final matches in combination with losses from Northern Colorado and Weber State to advance in the rankings to the necessary fourth-place spot. Currently, Sacramento State is the only team to have secured a spot in the Big Sky Tournament.

PSU will face the undefeated Sac State Hornets this Friday at home. The Hornets continued their winning streak yesterday when they beat the Weber State Wildcats 6-1. Following the Sac State match, the Viks hit the road Saturday for a match against Eastern Washington. Dalkin earlier stated that EWU is a key match in which the Viks hope to earn a victory, with the Eagles close to Portland State in the standings.

The Sac State match is set to begin on Friday at the Viks’ home-court of Green Meadow at 1 p.m. On Saturday, the match will begin at 3 p.m. in Spokane against Eastern Washington. ?