The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s tennis team lost a tight 4-2 match to Samford on Thursday, and the UTC men’s team fell 4-0 to Elon in the quarterfinals of the Southern Conference tournament at the Champions Club.
The fifth-seeded Lady Mocs had a bye into the quarters against No. 4 Samford. The Bulldogs routed UTC 6-1 last week at the UTC courts, but it was a much tighter match Thursday.
UTC won the doubles point and took the first set in three of the six singles matches. Samford was able to earn two singles wins and UTC got a 6-3, 6-2 victory from No. 1 Jenna Nurik to make it 2-2 with three matches remaining, all of them in a third set. The Bulldogs won two of the three for a 4-2 win, leaving UTC’s Shaina Singh in an unfinished 6-6 third set.
“It is always disappointing when you don’t win, but that being said, we did everything we could to get the win,” UTC coach Jeff Clark said. “You play four and a half hours and it comes down to three three-set matches.”
The Lady Mocs finished their season at 11-11, their first .500 record since 2003.
A day after beating No. 8 seed Georgia Southern, the ninth-seeded Mocs were drummed by top-seeded Elon. The Phoenix won the doubles point and then picked up three quick singles wins to end UTC’s season.
“Our guys are really competitive, so our highs are really high and unfortunately right now our lows are very low,” Mocs coach Carlos Garcia said. “This one stung a little bit.”
The Mocs ended the season with a record of 8-16.