Nicholls women’s tennis team drops final SLC match of season with home loss versus Demons

All the elements seemed to conspire against the Nicholls women’s tennis team against Northwestern State in Southland Conference action Monday at the Thibodaux Regional Sports Complex

The teams had to endure a lightning delay and heavy rain on a day that featured a solar eclipse.

“Both teams had to deal with the same elements,” Nicholls coach Greg Harkins said. “We’ve just got to get tougher. We have a couple of kids each week, each match contributing.

“Our challenge has been to get everybody on the same page at the same time. That’s what you have to do to win matches. You’ve got to have consistency across the lines.”

Things didn’t seem to be working against the Lady Colonels early. Because of an injured Northwestern State player, the Demons were able to field only five players. That meant the team could not field a third doubles team or a singles player at No. 6.

All Nicholls had to do was win one of the two doubles matches to gain a point to go along with a forfeit at No. 6 singles to gain a 2-0 lead and needing to win only two of the five singles events to win the match.

Northwestern State ended up winning both doubles matches. The forfeit in singles proved to be the only win for Nicholls on the day as the Demons came away with a 6-1 victory.

“We had break points. The line 2 doubles was really the one that was contested. We had a lot of chances there and we didn’t convert them,” said Harkins. “It’s just become symptomatic. The kids, sometimes self-doubt creeks in. You’ve just got to fight through that and get a little bit stronger.

“The kids who’ve been with me the last three or four years are the ones who are day in and day out, stepping up, but you need everybody on the squad to be on the same page. It gets harder. There’s no easy matches at this level. Everybody’s tough.”

Nicholls concluded Southland play at 0-7 while falling to 6-12 overall. Northwestern State improved to 3-3 in the conference and 10-7 overall.

The Lady Colonels opened the day with their No. 1 doubles team of Carla Bouygues and Constanza Cruz falling to the Northwestern State duo of Sara Erenda and Tjasa Klevisar, 3-6.

In the other doubles match, the Nicholls duo of Lea Grinberg and Noemie Piquet fell to the twosome of Sofi Garcia and Maria Farina, 4-6.

Shortly after singles play began, the teams were forced to leave the courts because of lightning. A strong rainstorm followed.  The match, which began at 11 a.m., didn’t resume until 4 p.m.

Nicholls lost all five of its matches in straight sets.

On Court 4, Aada Inna of Nicholls fell to Garcia, 2-6, 0-6. On Court 1, Liu QianYu fell to Klevisar, 4-6, 1-6.

The Demons clinched the match on Court 3 when Grinberg fell to Farina, 2-6, 3-6.

In the final two matches, Cruz fell to Umeda Honoka, 6-2, 5-7, and Bouygues was edged by Erenda, 6-7, 4-6.