DULUTH, Minn. (csssaints.com) – The St. Scholastica women's tennis team had their hands full this weekend with a pair of Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) opponents. To kick off the weekend the Saints hosted the No. 37 Carleton College Knights at their home facility in the Duluth Indoor Sports Center (D.I.S.C) but were defeated in this one on Saturday, 1-8. The Saints would bounce back and show their resilience Sunday morning as they would hit the road and nab their first conference win of the season, once again closing out a 5-4 deja vu victory in the "Bloomington bubble" on 98th street over the St. Catherine Wildcats. This dual match follows up a similar victory last weekend where CSS defeated Northwestern by the same margin inside the same venue. 

CSS vs. Carleton Knights

Doubles
The Knights (7-0, 4-0 MIAC) acquired all 3 of the available doubles points but were pushed to the brink on the No. 2 court by the pairing of Anna Ritchie (Becker, Minn./Becker HS) and Taylor Vyskocil (Ashland, Wis.), who fell just short via a deciding match tie break, 7-8 (1-7).

Singles
The Saints top player, Julia Maier (Hamburg, Germany/Heidberg Gymnasium) came away with another impressive singles win atop the lineup, triumphing 6-4, 6-4 over Mary Hose, an opponent she was defeated a year ago as the debutante. 

CSS was once more faced with a tall task after moving the rest of the lineup up a spot at the 2-6 positions. 

CSS vs. St. Catherine

Doubles
The Saints would get off to a great start Sunday afternoon grabbing 2 of the 3 available doubles points from the Cats' and the crucial edge going into singles play. 

Court No. 2 would make sure to close out business before a breaker was necessary today, bouncing back from Saturday's heartbreaker with an 8-5 win. 

However, The tie break was necessary on court No. 3, but CSS found themselves on the right side of this one when the all-northern duo of freshmen Annika Lundell (Hibbing, Minn.) and Chloe Hasbargen (Bemidji, Minn.) escaped with the 7-6 (8-6) victory. 

Singles

The singles portion of the dual match was highly entertaining, featuring a pair of deciding superbreakers on courts No. 2 and No. 5.

 The Forest Lake native Maya Nibbe (Anoka, Minn./Anoka HS) came up just short in an action-packed match at the 5 line, falling narrowly in a deciding frame 6-2, 3-6, (1-10). 

Mishell Benitez (Ambato, Ecuador/Colegio Tecnico Particular a Distancia José Martí) was a match-time decision, but entered the Saints lineup today at the No. 2 line, fighting back from a set down to a 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), (10-8) victory. 

Katia Bartels (St. Paul, Minn./Mounds View HS) put her foot on the gas and never let up, racing to a 6-2, 6-3 straight set victory over her Wildcat opposition. 

Rounding things up at the No. 1 position Maier completed her weekend singles sweep over two elite singles opponents whom she fell to last year as a MIAC rookie, this time winning over this year's fall ITA tournament runner-up Kelsey Dorr, 6-4, 6-4. That's three matches in a row for the junior from Deutschland. 

Up Next
These two matches wrap up the winter "indoor" portion of the Saints 2022-2023 season. St. Scholastica now officially moves to (3-5, 1-4 MIAC) and will rejoin the men's team for their respective spring break swing of matches outdoors in Orlando, Florida. Both the men's and women's tennis teams will travel to Eastern Florida State's campus on Saturday, March 11 for a dual match with the Titans. The lady Saints will return home for 6 more matches post-Florida, 4 of which will be conference opponents.