Agate

ELON, N.C. – The Elon University women's tennis team opened a three-match homestand with a 5-2 defeat of George Washington today, March 15, at the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center, the team's sixth win in its last seven matches.
 
"I thought we started off well with the doubles," Elon head coach Elizabeth Anderson said. "We've been working on trying to get better starts and get a little momentum going there and I thought that that looked pretty good today. In singles, we had good energy and we had some courts come off pretty quickly so that was good that they were able to maintain that focus."
 
The Phoenix swept doubles play with wins on all three courts. Bridget Liddell and Olivia Lucas was the first pair to finish, as the freshman duo claimed an 8-3 win on court No. 2.
 
Taylor Casey and Erica Braschi, last week's Colonial Athletic Association Doubles Team of the Week, continued their solid play and earned their sixth straight doubles victory with an 8-4 win over George Washington's Egle Jakuciunaite and Taylor Nederlander.
 
With the doubles point already in hand, Barbora Lazarova and Kirsten Ward outlasted the Colonials' Grace Egger and Lana Robins, 8-7 (7-2), to complete the sweep.
 
Lazarova lost just one game in her 6-0, 6-1 defeat of Egger, which gave Elon a 2-0 lead. The victory was Lazarova's sixth in her last seven singles matches. Braschi followed with a 6-1, 6-2 win at No. 4 singles, her fifth straight singles win.
 
Maria Camara Ruiz clinched the match for the Phoenix with a 6-0, 6-3 victory against Nederlander. Casey added another point for Elon after she claimed her fifth straight singles win, a 7-5, 6-0 decision, to stretch the Elon lead to 5-0.
 
The Phoenix, which improves to 7-5 on the season, is back in action on Wednesday, March 18, against East Carolina. The match is set for 2:30 p.m. at the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center.
 
"We've got a very good ECU team that we're going to play on Wednesday and then James Madison, which is pretty strong as well, on Saturday so we just need to keep working, fine tuning our doubles, keep working our singles patterns and strategies a little bit more," Anderson said. "But I think today was good and helped us get a little bit more confidence."