Story courtesy of Texas Lutheran University
SUMTER, S.C. – Texas Lutheran women's singles player
Sofia
Vega fell in three sets – 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 – to
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's Megan Humphreys in the main
draw first round at the USTA/ITA National Small College
Championships.
The match took three hours, 37 minutes between the No. 2 seed Vega,
a junior from Corpus Christi (Flour Bluff), and the unseeded
Humphreys.
Vega won the opening set 6-2 and led 5-1 in the second set but
could not put away Humphreys.
Humphreys advances to the national semifinal round. Vega moves into
the consolation half of the draw.
"I'm disappointed that I'm not bringing back a trophy like I set
out to do, but sometimes that happens, and I just have to get right
back up," said Vega, a contender for the small college national
title for the second consecutive year. "It happens in the
professional world to some of the best players, and it happens to
us too."
"Now my goal is to try to beat every person that I have to face in
the consolation draw and get the best results from here on out. I
will shake this off, rest my body, and get ready for tomorrow."
Vega was one of three seeds to fall Thursday. Top seed Caroline
Ward of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps lost to Ashnaa Rao of John Hopkins
6-1, 6-3, and No. 3 seed Andrea Madrigal of La Verne fell to Kate
Christensen of Vassar.
Humphreys plays Christenson at 10:30 a.m. eastern Friday in one
semifinal. Rao faces No. 4 seed Beatrice Rosen of Emory –
2-6, 7-6, 6-1 winner over Rebecca Ho of Washington-St. Louis
– at 10:30 a.m. eastern Friday in the other semifinal.
Vega meets Madrigal in the consolation semifinal at 10:30 a.m.
eastern Friday.
"That was a great battle (between Vega and Humphreys)," said
Michael
Hunt, TLU's head coach for men's and women's tennis.
"Almost four hours of tennis, and only in the final game did I feel
like Sofia was exhausted. You have to give credit to Megan for
hanging in there and making Sofia earn it."
"There were two loose games at 5-2 up in the second set that I know
Sofia would like to have back. That changed the momentum, and it
was tough to turn it back afterwards. Sofia is disappointed but not
devastated. She realizes how close she was to winning but that you
can never take it for granted that the opponent will hand it to
you. We will bounce back and be ready for tomorrow morning."
