Cougars fall to San Diego 4-3 at home

PROVO, Utah — BYU women’s tennis dropped its Saturday afternoon match 4-3 to the San Diego Toreros in Provo.

Despite sweeping the doubles matches to win the first point of the day, the Cougars struggled to find their groove in singles play.

Leah Heimuli and Helen Jiao fell into an early deficit, dropping the first two games of doubles match number one to USD’s Elizabeth Goldsmith and Claudia De Las Heras. The Cougars came back to win the next three games to take a 3-2 lead, midway through the match. The teams traded games, but the Cougars secured the match 6-3.

Anastasia Abramyan and Bobo Huang dominated doubles match number two taking a commanding 3-1 lead early. San Diego’s Solymar Colling and Victoria Kalaitzisf fought back, breaking the Cougars' serve to win two straight games and cut the lead to 5-3 before Abramyan and Huang closed out the match, 6-3 to win the doubles point for BYU.

Solymar for USD secured the first point for the Toreros with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over BYU’s Abramyan. Heimuli, who played in the No. 2 spot, dropped her match to Goldsmith 6-3, 6-2.

San Diego’s Jordan McBride took down BYU’s Huang 6-4, 6-4 to take a 3-0 lead in singles. De Las Heras for the Toreros took down the Cougars Emilee Astle for the fourth and final point of the match, 6-4, 6-4.

BYU’s No. 5 Madison Smith and No. 6 Kara Lin recorded the Cougars' second and third points as the Toreros retired their final two matches.

The Cougars look to bounce back as they take on another conference foe as the San Francisco Dons come to town on Thursday, April 7 at 12 p.m. MDT.