The Lone Star Showdown between Texas A&M and Texas has produced close games in numerous sports – Thursday’s women’s tennis match between the two teams wasn’t one of them.
A&M put on a clinic for the Longhorn players while routing the No. 15 team in the country, 6-1.
For the second time in as many nights, a higher ranked Longhorn team was upset by the Aggies. Wednesday in softball. Texas again couldn’t find their rhythm before falling to the lower ranked Aggies, Thursday in tennis.
Within the match itself, junior Sarah Foster fought back and forth with Longhorn Petra Dizdar, ranked 81st nationally. Foster was able to defeat Dizdar in two sets, and put A&M up 4-0. Foster’s point clinched the match for the Aggies, and kept A&M unblemished in conference play at 6-0.
“I don’t think anything was said, I think we just knew it was time to get a big win,” Foster said. “We’ve had so many close 4-3 losses this season, and we were just absolutely so hungry for this, nothing was going to stop us, and we knew it.”
In the doubles matches, A&M was able to take two out of the three for the point, one of which saw the No. 1 doubles team of Foster and Tiffany Clifford pulling away quickly and beating Texas 8-3.
“Winning that doubles point, it just takes so much pressure off of the singles,” A&M head coach Bobby Kleinecke said.
Kleinecke said he was impressed not only with the way his team played all night, but also with his team’s fire and determination that came out in the dominating win. Regardless of the win, he said the team needs to make sure to stay in the present and not overlook their next match against Nebraska.
“We beat them pretty good,” Kleinecke said. “But the thing about it is that the game of tennis – you’ve got to be ready every single time you play. If we keep celebrating this, then we’re going to struggle against Nebraska on Saturday. All we’ve done by beating Texas is jumped one more step towards that conference championship that we’re fighting for.”
The loss against the Aggies was Texas’ first since 2003.
“Whether a team dwells on a win too long, or dwells on a loss too long, by the end of this month rolling into Big 12s, that’s where you want to be peaking,” Texas assistant coach Ed Carter said. “While a loss like this stings, and it’s tough to take. I mean, all credit to A&M, they had a great crowd, great turnout, they played really hard and they came out and took the match. We can’t afford to do anything other than get ready for the next matches.”