FREDERICKSBURG, Va. -- Rookie
Kylie Schaefer secured the Captains' lone win on Sunday afternoon as the nationally-ranked Christopher Newport women's tennis team suffered an 8-1 setback against No. 18 Carnegie Mellon (10-4) on a neutral court. The loss snapped a five-match winning streak with the last loss on the schedule also coming at the hands of Carnegie Mellon exactly one month prior.
The Tartans earned a doubles sweep including a regionally-ranked win over No. 4
Tessa Trate and
Raine Weis. The veteran duo suffered just their third loss of the Spring when No. 10 Danna Taylor and Zoe Angell earned an 8-4 win on the top line. The other two matches ended in 8-6 finals as
Mia Linam and
Samantha Robertson battled tough against Anna Chow and Divya Venkatarama at No. 2 and Schaefer paired with
Megan Bauer for the narrow loss at No. 3 against Anika Joshi and Sarah Yang.
Into singles play, Carnegie Mellon clinched the team win with the first two wins at No. 2 and No. 5. Then came Schaefer's victory for the Captains at No. 6 against Ainika Hou. Schaefer captured a straight-set win over her opponent, winning the bout by a final score of 6-4, 6-4. She added to her team-high singles win total for 2023-24 as the freshman now has 12 wins paired with just five losses in her first season.
Two of the remaining matches were stretched to a third set tiebreaker as
Mia Linam and
Raine Weis each extended their opponent to extra time against regionally-ranked foes. At No. 3, Linam took on Venkatarama, ranked No. 11 in the Atlantic region and earned a first set win, 6-4. The evenly-played matchup then went to a second-set breaker before Venkatarama outlasted Linam in the third for a 4-6, 7-6 (3), 1-0 (10-6) final.
Weis also earned a first set win, edging out Sarah Yang, ranked No. 2 in the region, by a razors-thin margin. She picked up the victory, 7-6 (8-6), before Yang rebounded to capture the second set 6-3. In the decisive third, it was back-and-forth until Weis suffered a 10-6 loss to end the match.
Christopher Newport will return to action at home this week as they welcome in Division I Longwood University at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 11.
