The Falcon women's tennis team traveled to compete against UW-Oshkosh in their final regular season road trip of the year on Saturday, April 17, 2021. The Falcons were fresh of their first conference win of the season in their last match and were looking to make it two in a row against the Titans.
Coming into the match, the Falcons were looking for their first win against UW Oshkosh in many years.
The Falcons started quickly in doubles taking two out of the three doubles points. #2 doubles team Gabby Potthoff and Karyn Duddeck dominated from the start of their match cruising to an 8-1 win to open the scoring.
#1 doubles team Kailey Courteau and Abbie Reed faced a tough Titan team in which 7 of the 8 games were decided by Ad points and all went in favor of the Titans in the defeat 8-0.
"When only one game ends without going to deuce that is quite unusual. Kailey and Abbie played extremely high level doubles, but just couldn't close out games when they had their chances. It was a great match to watch and we take away a lot of positives from it," said head coach Dan Stumpf.
#3 doubles team Delaney Osmond and Macy Ragsdale lead from the beginning and won 8-3 to give the Falcons their second team point heading to singles.
UW-O came out challenging the Falcons right from the start of singles play. Many of the positions were evenly matched and the Falcons needed to play hard to win the team match. #6 singles Kaedyn Kirchner handled her match with consistent play leading to a 6-1, 6-1 victory to put the Falcons up 3-1.
#2 singles Abbie Reed faced a gritty Titan player that had very consistent play and great placement of her shots, downing Reed 6-1, 6-0.
"Abbie played a great match today and gave an incredible effort. Her opponent threw everything at her and Abbie responded despite the lopsided score," said Stumpf.
#1 singles Kailey Courteau was matched against a tough conference foe that had a strong all-around game with not many weaknesses, handing Courteau a loss 6-3, 6-2.
"Kailey continues to play at a high level of tennis every week. Here preparation is strong and it shows every time she competes. She has filled our top singles spot extremely well this year as a sophomore," Stumpf added.
With the match evened 3-3, it came down to 3 remaining matches that were extremely close between the skills of the players on each squad. #3 singles Gabby Potthoff battled hard to ward off a tough Oshkosh player leading to a big victory 6-3, 6-1 to give the Falcons the lead again 4-3.
#4 singles Karyn Duddeck won the deciding point giving the Falcons the team win by closing out her opponent 6-3, 6-2. Oshkosh native and #5 singles player Delaney Osmond ended the competition by giving the Falcons their 6th point winning 6-3, 7-6 (5).
"This was a great win on the road for us today. It feels good to end the winless drought against the Titans and our players deserve it for their excellent efforts today, " Stumpf commented.
