Two wins were all the Barton Community College women's tennis team could score Tuesday at Great Bend's Veteran's Memorial Park tennis courts, but the victors were big ones despite the No. 17 Lady Cougars' 7-2 loss to No. 10 Cowley College. Barton will have one final tune-up before hosting next weekend's Region VI Championship as the Lady Cougars will host Fort Hays State University at 2:00 p.m. Thursday at the Ellinwood Grade School tennis courts.
Barton's two wins came in the No. 1 slot matchups as Neus Torregrosa had a racket in both victories. Beginning the day with the doubles matches, the No. 1 duo of Torregrosa and Idah Longwe pulled out a highly competitive 8-6 win over Sarah Frendo and Sara Petric who both hold national rankings in singles play.
No. 30 Torregrosa and No. 3 ranked Frendo would return to the court a short while later with Torregrosa pulling off a big comeback victory. Dropping the first set 6-2, Torregrosa dug deep in grabbing the second set 7-6(2) before completing the comeback upset with a 10-8 win in the third set improving her season singles record to 10-4.
Longwe unfortunately had her ten match singles victory snapped as Garduna won in straight sets 6-2, 6-4. The loss was the first since February 10 as the sophomore from Zambia drops to still an impressive 14-3 record on the season.
The No. 2 doubles of Julia Ramalho and Juliana Seabra fell short in their dual 8-4 with the Tigers' Kasey Coker and Maria Garduno while the No. 3 pairing of Jenna Groene and Shai Cartmill taking on Barbara Broville and Maria Zimmerman was closer but again the Lady Cougars fell short in the 8-6 match.Romalho took the first set 7-5 over Broville in the No. 2 singles match but the No. 28 ranked Tiger won the final two sets of the hard fought match 7-5 and 10-8.
In addition to Longwe's loss, the Lady Cougars went down in straight sets in the other three singles with Seabra taking the lumps in the No. 3 slot 6-0, 6-2, to No. 33 ranked Petric while Groene came up short 6-3, 6-1, in the No. 5 to Coker while doubles partner Cartmill lost straight 6-2 sets to Zimmerman.