The UCSB women’s tennis team came away with mixed results in a busy weekend, during which the team played three road matches in three days. The Gauchos lost to St. Mary’s College by a score of 1-5 on Friday, beat the University of San Francisco 5-2 on Saturday and were narrowly defeated by Santa Clara University on Sunday by a score of 3-4.

Up against a tough St. Mary’s team on a drizzly day where the match was postponed over an hour, Santa Barbara came away with just a single victory from the six singles matches while the doubles matches were cancelled due to rain. Playing at the #6 singles position, junior Tova Hausman defeated freshman Molly Aloia (4-6, 7-5, 1-0 (10-5)) to give the Gauchos their one and only point for the match.

The rest of the singles players were not able to find success against their opponents. The #1 singles player sophomore Sofia Novak lost 1-6, 1-6 to Catherine Isip, #2 singles player sophomore Natalia Lozano lost 4-6, 7-5 to Alex Poorta, #3 singles player senior Asagi Onaga was defeated 4-6, 4-6 by Anna Chikhikvishvili, #4 singles player freshman Annabel Gledden was beaten 3-6, 1-6 by Claire Soper, and #5 singles player sophomore Jordan Dockendorf fell 2-6, 6-7 to Alisa Spitzer.

“Once we got into it we competed well, but they’re a real good team,” Head Coach Pete Kirkwood said. “[The match was] good, tough competition and it lets us know what we need to work on to get to that level.”

The competition didn’t get any easier the following day against USF, but the Gauchos were able to pull off an impressive victory nonetheless. The singles players stepped up their games as UCSB won four of the six singles matches, with the only losses coming from the #1 position, where Novak was defeated by #65 Jennifer-Lee Heinser (6-4, 6-1), and the #3 position, where Onaga lost 0-6, 0-6 to Cecilia Gratian.

The doubles stepped up to the plate as well and Santa Barbara was able to capture the doubles point with wins in two of the three very close matches. Senior Bryanna Ojeda and Onaga won their match 8-5 while Novak and Hausman beat their opponents 8-6.

“We played probably the best we’ve played all season that match,” Kirkwood said. “We were happy with the way we beat them and it was a good quality match.”

In their third consecutive match, a tired Gaucho team didn’t have enough gas left in the tank to beat out Santa Clara. The teams split the singles matches, with Santa Barbara dropping the first three slots, but winning in the #4, #5 and #6 positions.

“We just didn’t have the legs to finish it off,” Kirkwood said. “I think if we don’t play them on the third day of three matches we beat them.”

The match came down to the doubles point, where UCSB needed to win at least two of the three matches in order to pull off a victory. Ojeda and Onaga collected a win for the Gauchos, but the other two doubles pairs could not do the same. This gave Santa Clara both the doubles point and the victory.

Despite a 2-5 record, the team feels good about their recent play and their chances for the rest of the season.

“We’re pretty satisfied about how tough we’re playing and we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves,” Kirkwood said.