MONMOUTH, Ill. – The Illinois College women's tennis team came agonizingly close to repeating its amazing feat from Tuesday, traveling to Monmouth College with only four players and nearly coming back to take down the Fighting Scots before falling by a score of 5-4. The loss drops the Lady Blues to 3-7 (2-5 Midwest Conference).
Without a No. 3 doubles team, Illinois College started in a 1-0 hole against Monmouth.
Sally Hixson and
Sophia Roth leveled the score at 1-1 with an emphatic 8-0 victory over Emma Johanns and McKenzie DeVilder at No. 1, but Monmouth was able to take the lead back thanks to an 8-1 win at No. 2 by Rachel Leifheit and Natalie Curtis over
Kalisa Goertz and
Madelyn Deardorff.
That 2-1 lead for Monmouth became 4-1 with default wins at Nos. 5 and 6 singles. That meant that Illinois College needed a clean sweep of its remaining four matches and the Lady Blues set out to do just that. Victories by Hixson, Roth and Goertz in the top three matches of the evening brought IC within a point of the come-from-behind victory, but Deardorff was unable to pull out the win at No. 4 against Leifheit.
At No. 1, Hixson was a 6-3, 7-5 winner over Johanns. Roth eked out a 6-1, 3-6, 10-5 win over DeVilder at No. 2. In No. 3 singles, Goertz efficiently dispatched Haley Johnston, 6-2, 6-2. At No. 4, Deardorff couldn't keep up with Leifheit, falling 6-0, 6-1.
Illinois College moves back into non-conference play on Sept. 21 with a 6 p.m. match at Greenville University.
