COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – South Dakota women's tennis opened its fall season by competing in the new event, the Bedford Cup hosted by the Air Force Academy.
The Coyotes sent seven participating athletes to the event and came away with a combined overall record of 22-16 record for the three-day event that saw a 16-10 mark in singles play and three doubles tandems each going 2-2.
"The team had a great start to the season at the Bedford Cup hosted by Air Force," coach
Brett Barnett said. "A goal of mine was to really challenge the team with our fall schedule and this was a loaded tournament with a few good Mountain West teams and top Big Sky teams.
"It's a challenge always in your first event to know how you'll play and we had the extra challenges of playing at 7,300 ft. Everyone on the team played so well and had multiple wins. We've been talking a lot of not backing down and playing our style of tennis and making teams adjust to us."
Grace Chadick, a senior, made her way to the finals of Flight Bravo and posted a 3-1 record on the weekend. She defeated opponents from Idaho State, Davidson and Air Force before falling in the championship match to Marley Lambert of Denver.
Bea Havlickova and
Sorcha Caves went 3-1 in singles play while
Selena Bird and
Amanda de Oliveira posted 2-1 mark.
Katarina Curcic at 2-2 and
Coco Elise Lynn-Browne at 1-3 also competed in singles for the Coyotes.
Havlickova, a senior and returning All-Summit League First Team selection, dropped a hard-fought match in the quarterfinals before rebounding with a pair of three-set wins to secure the North division final title in Flight Alpha with triumphs over Air Force and New Mexico.
Caves, a sophomore, won her third place match over Montana State-Bozeman in Flight Charley while also picking up wins over Davidson and Colorado State.
Bird, a junior, and de Oliveira, a sophomore, suffered similar fates in dropping quarterfinal matches in Flight Bravo and after earning wins over Davidson and New Mexico, respectively, did not face each other in the North division final.
"Grace had a strong tournament making the final and gutted out a couple of tough wins," said Barnett. "Bea stepped up and took down a very strong Air Force and New Mexico player to take third in the top flight.
"Sorcha played very confident tennis all weekend, lost a heartbreaker in the semis but responded well with a convincing win for third place in her flight. Amanda and Selena both had good wins over Mountain West players and ended up co-third after not playing their match."
Curcic made her Coyote debut by posting an opening win over Air Force and closing out the event with a victory over Idaho State, both coming in straight sets. Lynn-Browne also made her debut in a South Dakota uniform and had a strong comeback in a three-set win over Montana State-Bozeman.
"It was good seeing Coco and Kat compete for the first time and pick up some good wins," added Barnett.
"Coco showed a lot of heart and fight coming from a set down and 7-1 down in a match tiebreaker to win 10-7."
The Coyote doubles tandems of Havlickova/Chadick, Caves/de Oliveira and Bird/Lynn-Browne all went 2-2.
South Dakota returns to the courts on Friday for the three-day Gopher Invite hosted by the University of Minnesota.
"Doubles was good, definitely things to work on but we did a nice job playing very aggressive," Barnett said. "Amanda/Sorcha were a bit unlucky to not make a final but played great all weekend.
"This team showed a lot of heart and fight and if we play like this all year it's going to be another great season."
