LINCOLN, Neb. – Concordia University Nebraska Women’s Tennis competed in the GPAC Fall Individual Tournament this past weekend (Sept. 27-28). The Bulldogs had 14 different players compete in the tournament, taking two singles titles via Alana Lopez Pagan and Ishane Derman with many runner up finishes.
Concordia is done for its fall season and Head Coach Lisa Hart commented on the progress and looking forward to the spring season to come.
“Very proud of our men’s and women’s teams' progress this fall. We have come a long way. Excited for all of our players to continue developing and working hard to prepare for our dual match season in the spring.”
After five rounds of play, the singles B draw only had one left standing in Lopez Pagan. The Forney, Texas, native won four matches to take the championship and defeated her opponents 8-2, 8-4, 8-6 and 8-1 in a dominant final over Ana Sores. Ishane Derman did the same in C draw, winning her second tournament in the past two weekends. The Lomé, Africa native picked off her opponents 8-6, 8-5, 8-0 and 8-5 in the title match. Newcomer Shea Cramer won three straight matches (8-5, 8-1, 8-3) before running into teammate Ishane in an all-Bulldog C Draw final.
In draw D, Kylie Freudenburg won two in a row (8-6, 8-5) before meeting with Teya Badger in the semifinals. Freudenburg got the better of the unbeaten Badger (8-6) and moved on to the draw final. The senior out of Norfolk, Neb., had a back and forth match with Maria De Lama, pushing the match to extra games before falling (7-9) to a second place finish.
In A draw, Mariana Molano defeated Suri Gomez (8-4), Olga Furmanova (8-4) but fell (8-6) in the semifinal to Line Jensen in the close contest.
In the B doubles draw, Chakira Derman and Alexa Richert teamed up in doubles and won three straight matches and eventually fell in the final (7-5). Brooke Hosick and Lauren Gottberg won their first two (6-2, 6-4) then fell in the semifinals in a tough 6-4 match.
Tessa Blough, Mia Golka, Nina Milic and Kadence Spurgeon also competed in the tournament.
Concordia will pick back up in the spring for dual action and look to show its growth in conference play before the GPAC tournament. The Bulldogs went 5-2 in the conference last season.