The UCSB women’s tennis team opened its regular season by splitting matches this past weekend, defeating Northern Arizona 5-0 on Sunday after losing a 4-3 heartbreaker to Santa Clara on Friday.

Friday’s match against the Broncos went down to the final match. UCSB clinched the doubles point, jumping to a 1-0 lead after taking two of three doubles matches. In singles play, the Broncos won the first two matches to take a 2-1 lead. Junior Sofia Novak, who played #1 for much of last year, earned the Gauchos’ first singles point in the third slot to tie the score at 2-2.

With both teams splitting the next two matches to even the score at 3-3, senior Michelle Murphy won her first set 6-2 but dropped the second one by the same margin. In the third set, she jumped to a 5-0 lead but lost seven straight games to lose the set and the match.

“It’s disappointing, but it happens,” junior Jill Damion said. “We had to move on, it’s important not to dwell.”

Inclement weather on Sunday nearly caused the Gauchos’ match against Northern Arizona to be postponed, but the courts dried and UCSB was able to sweep the Lumberjacks 5-0.

“We just came out and did business Sunday,” junior Jordan Dockendorf said. “This is important for our confidence.”

“It was nice to win,” Damion added. “But it wasn’t any more exciting than any other win. It’s something we knew we had to do.”

With the big victory, UCSB is looking to keep their momentum for their doubleheader against Cal State Stanislaus and Cal State Bakersfield.

“We played really good today and turned around [from the Santa Clara loss],” junior Natalia Lozano said. “We’re really fired up for our next match.”

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