The UCSB women’s tennis team split two away games this weekend while also gathering its first win on the season, beating LMU in a 4-3 thriller on Saturday and then falling to the University of San Diego 3-4 on Sunday.

The Gauchos (1-3) first headed to Loyola Marymount University (1-3) where they played an enticing match and defeated LMU 4-3. This was a big win for the Gauchos, as they have now beaten the team three years in a row. The Gauchos won in a shootout, and this was clearly the theme of Saturday’s match.

Number one singles starter April Scatliffe had a substantial win over LMU’s Miya Jin 6-3, 4-6, 10-6. In second singles, Stacey Yam fell to LMU’s Jessica Perez 3-6, 2-6, and at three singles Paola Cos was beaten by LMU’s Kristine Kouyoumjian 1-6, 2-6. Melissa Baker, a new addition to the Gauchos, had a huge win at fourth singles, defeating Lauri Mueller 4-6, 6-1, 10-8. Priscila Garcia at fifth doubles dropped her match to LMU’s Reka Rohonyi 6-4, 1-6, 11-13. At sixth singles Luisa Ortiz Candido defeated LMU’s Julia Norlin 7-5, 6-2.

“I think we played well and fought extremely hard today,” Scatliffe said. “Winning at LMU was a great booster for us because we went on this trip missing our number two and three players, so we were already at a deficit from the start, but ended up playing great tennis.”

The game came down to the doubles matches for the Gauchos where the duos of Scatliffe/Garcia and Yam/Ortiz Candido came out with huge wins for the Gauchos to lift them to an overall victory of 4-3. With the victory, the Gauchos obtained their first win on the season.

UCSB (1-3) continued their road trip heading to San Diego (1-2) on Sunday where another close battle was displayed by both teams.

Scatliffe started again at first singles for the Gauchos, falling to SD’s Shani Blecher 4-6, 3-6. The Gauchos saw victories at their number five singles starter Garcia, who defeated SD’s Mikayla Morkel-Brink 6-0, 6-2 and at number six singles where Ortiz Candido beat SD’s Idil Haciraifoglu 6-3, 2-6, 1-0. However, these victories were not enough as the Gauchos were outlasted by San Diego 3-4.

“San Diego was a ranked team and the fact that we won all of our doubles matches and we were only one match away from winning shows how tough we are,” Scatliffe said.

The Gauchos are still weeks away from conference play and therefore have plenty of time to get healthy and devise a supreme lineup. UCSB looks to face Washington St. followed by Washington in another road trip next weekend.

This article is an online exclusive and did not appear in the print edition of The Daily Nexus.

Photo by Peter Vandenbelt of The Daily Nexus.