Cougars Move to Consolation Round of National Indoor Championship

MADISON -- In the first round of the USTA/ITA National Women's Team Indoor Championship the BYU women's tennis team fell to No. 3 California Berkley 7-0 in the A.C. Nielsen Tennis Stadium.

The Cougars began with promising doubles matches as BYU's top seeded duo Barbora Zahnova and Hadley Macfarlane knocked off California's No. 1 seed Kops-Jones and Jacobs 8-6.

Struggling in the other two doubles matches for the Cougars Rebecca Pike and Lu Oswald rallied close but fell to their opponents 8-4, while teammates Olga Boulytcheva and Sofia Holden were unable to push past California's Catherine Lynch and Jessica Shu falling 8-5 giving the Bears a 1-0 advantage over the Cougars.

"I felt like we played well today," head coach Craig Manning said. "It's really tough against a team like California. Barbora and Hadley had a great match, but all the girls played very tough. Today showed us that we are getting better."

As BYU battled for points in singles action, No. 43 Zahnova had Kops-Jones (No. 2) of Cal. Berkley down 4-1 in the second set but fell behind dropping the set and match 6-4, 6-4. The Cougars lost all of the other singles matches.

BYU's Sofia Holden also came close to defeating her opponent falling in a 12-10 tiebreaker. Cougar players Boulytcheva, Pike and Lauren Jones all came close to pushing their matches to three sets.

"All the matches were really close," Manning said. "I felt like we executed well today. We just want to keep competing and do well tomorrow."

The Cougars will begin play in the consolation round Friday at 9 a.m. against Southern California. Results will be posted here as matches terminate.

Round 1
BYU vs. CALIFORNIA (Berkley)
Doubles
1. Zahnova/MacFarlane (BYU) def. Kops-Jones/Jacobs (California) 8-6
2. Havlicek/Scheldt (California) def. Pike/Oswald (BYU)  	8-4	
3. Lynch/Shu (California) def. Bulycheva/Holden (BYU) 		8-5
Singles
1. No. 2 Raquel Kops-Jones (Cal) def. No. 43 Barbora Zahnova (BYU) 6-4, 6-4
2. Jieun Jacobs (Cal) def. Sofia Holden (BYU)		    4-6, 6-3, (12-10)
3. No. 99 Nicole Havlicek (Cal) def. Lauren Jones (BYU)            6-1, 6-4
4. No. 82 Catherine Lynch (Cal) def. Olga Bulycheva (BYU)          6-1, 6-4
5. No. 59 Jody Scheldt (Cal) def. Lu Oswald(BYU)  	            6-2, 6-1
6. Monica Wiesener (Cal) def. Rebecca Pike (BYU)  	            6-1, 7-6 (4)