The Barton Community College teams took advantage of nearly a month away from competition chalking up a pair of victories in the heart of Central Kansas over NAIA opponents earlier this week.
The teams traveled to Bethany College on Sunday with the squads sweeping all the matches played before one day later traveling to McPherson College earning a 5-4 win on the women's side with the men battling out a tough 7-2 victory over the NAIA 19th ranked Bulldogs.
A key Region VI match looms for the Cougars in their date on the court as Barton will host nationally ranked Cowley College at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday at Great Bend's Veteran's Park. *Side note: Matches may be moved due to court availability and/or weather. Stay tuned to our website and/or social media for the latest schedule information.
Sunday both teams were dominant in the eighteen matches with just one hanging in the balance as the men's No. 1 tandem of Guido Luna and Sebastian Pino recovered from a slow 3-6 deficit start to prevail 9-7.
Monday was a different story on both the men's and women's side with numerous competitive matches.
On the women's side, the teams split the first two doubles matches, the Bulldogs' No. 1 duo of Brittany Zipf and Erica Paradise winning 8-5 over 17th ranked Julia Candiotto and Mariane Lima while the Cougars' No. 2 tandem of Claudia Sumaia and Gwendolen Sior took care of McPherson's Besa Bwalya and Zoe Bouwmeester 8-3.
Benefitting from McPherson playing a woman shy and forfeiting the No. 3 doubles, the Cougars' Brianna Talley also received the free pass at the No. 6 singles providing the edge for the victory as the Bulldogs won three of the four individual matches.
Singles victories for Barton came from #21 Lima dropping just one game against Paradise in the No. 2 slot while 45th ranked Sumaia earned a 6-2, 6-1 win over Bwalya.
Barton's top singles player 35th Candiotto split the first two sets, losing 6-4 before forcing a third with a 7-5 win but the Bulldogs' Zipf came out on top of the battle 10-8 in the super tiebreaker.
McPherson took the No. 4 and No. 5 matches as Bouwmeester defeated Sior 6-3, 6-2, and Sydney Hicks prevailing 6-1, 6-3, over Sara Martin.
The Cougar men took a 2-1 lead after doubles play with No. 2 Oswaldo Cano and Mariano Cabrera, as well as, the No. 3 duo of Octavio Carrasco and Tom Letecheur each winning their matches 8-3. The No. 1 team of Luna and Pino just never got rolling as Jacob Turley and Julien Bodin handed them an 8-1 defeat.
Four of the six singles matches went into super tiebreakers with the other two matches also highly competitive with the Cougars coming out on top in five.
Luna and Cano won the first two levels of singles, Luna defeating Juan Alejandro Jimenez 6-1, 6-4, with Cano prevailing 10-7 over Turley in the tiebreaker having won the first set 6-2 but dropping the second 5-7.
Pino forced the third set in the No. 3 slot, dropping the first 6-3 before taking the second 6-2, but the Bulldogs' Bodin would prevail 10-2 in the tie breaker.
Cabrera held off Nicolas Wahl in the No. 4, coming out on top 10-7 of the tie breaker after winning the first 6-4 but dropping the second 6-2.
Carrasco joined Luna as the other straight set victor, earning a hard fought 6-3, 6-4, win over Rick Sakamoto in the No. 5 match.
Letecheur won the first set of the No. 6 over James Lee 6-4 but needed a 10-8 tiebreaking win after taking a 6-0 second set blanking.