On Wednesday, January 31, the Lady Lions tennis team was defeated by Jackson State in a 4-3 loss.

The team’s season has started a bit rocky, as they’ve added this loss to their previous two defeats, but an encouraging 7-0 victory at Grambling on Friday, Feb. 2 should help aid the squad’s spirits.

Senior Alba Perez said, “For the next match, I feel that we can be louder and more positive to bring our energy up, but we fought good and we fought them till the end, so that’s always good.”

The match was a close one, with the Lady Lions winning doubles and singles matches.

Head Coach Jason Hayes said, “The one thing that I was happy with was how hard they fought and because we’re so young and this is our first home match, we fought incredibly hard. We didn’t play our best tennis, but we fought as hard as we could and I’m very happy with that.” 

Freshman Bente Bierma claimed one of the points for the team and earned her first collegiate singles victory.

Bierma reflected, “I think our energy is good and for the next matches, I think we just need to keep our energy up and try to be more consistent. It was a tough match, but I think I did well. I did lose my focus in the second set, but I kept fighting, and took the third set.”

However, SLU’s winning streak was followed by a chain of singles victories from Jackson State.

“Tactically, we made some key mistakes, but the best thing we can do is we can focus on our mental game and our emotional game because our physical game is good, we fought hard. We just need to get the other things going,” Hayes said. 

SLU will take on New Jersey Institute of Technology on Friday, Feb. 9 at 3 p.m. tomorrow in Newark, New Jersey along with Bryant on Sunday, Feb. 11 at 9 a.m. 

Stay tuned to The Lion’s Roar for the latest updates on your Lady Lions.