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PORTLAND, Ore. — Never trust a tennis dual score line. They're often misleading as was the case again Friday as the Portland State women's tennis team battled in a close dual against cross-town rival University of Portland but ultimately fell 6-1 at the Louisiana Pacific Tennis Center.
 
"Everybody played their hearts out today," head coach Jay Sterling said. "Eszter [Zador] obviously had a great win, and Alli [Valk] played an awesome match against a great player. So there are things to take away from this one for sure.
 
"We're not giving up. We clearly think and know that we can win every match that we're going out there to play, even against a great team like UP. Dealing with the adversity and challenge that we have right now – being short a couple of players –to see our team come out and handle the adversity and compete for each other and themselves, it's what we want to see going into conference play."
 
With only five players available, the Vikings were again forced to forfeit the matches at No. 3 doubles and No. 6 singles but had their chances despite starting the match in a hole.
 
The Pilots swept the doubles matches at lines one and two to take the doubles point, but then found themselves in a fight in the first thee singles matches of the dual.
 
Zador came out and smacked her opponent at line three, running out to a 3-0 lead against UP's Raphaelle Leblanc. Leblanc got the break back to get back on serve, but Zador won the final three games to take the set, 6-2. Zador and Leblanc stayed on serve through the first five games of the second set, but Zador again ran away late – this time winning the final four games to wrap up a 6-2, 6-2 win.
 
Zador's win brought the Vikings back in the dual at 2-1, and Alli Valk and Siena Peri had the Vikings in the matches at lines one and two as well.
 
Peri fell behind, 3-0, at the start of her match against UP's Radina Dimitrova at line two, but then rattled off four games in a row to a take a 4-3 and break lead. UP got the break back right away, however, and then broke again with Peri serving at 5-6 to take the first set, 7-5. Peri couldn't find her way into the second set after that, and lost 7-5, 6-1 to Dimitrova.
 
Valk played the match of the dual at line one against UP's Jelena Lukic. Valk fell behind 4-1 in the first set against Lukic, but then broke back to get back on serve at 4-3. Like Peri, however, Valk got broken in the final game of the set to lose, 7-5, and fell behind 3-0 early in the second set.
 
Valk turned things around after that, though, winning four straight games to go up a break at 4-3. Valk then had two chances to serve for the set at 5-4 and 6-5, but Lukic broke Valk at deuce both times. Additionally, Valk ran out to a 5-2 lead in the ensuing tiebreaker, but Lukic won six of the final seven points in the tiebreaker to steal the second set and win the match, 7-5, 7-6 (6).
 
Lukic's win over Valk clinched the dual for the Pilots, and the Pilots added wins at lines four and five in straight sets. Gerda Upeniece and Ashley Knecht improved over the second set in each of their matches, but lost in straight sets to UP's Lourdes Ramalle and Anna Oberg, respectively.
 
The Vikings open Big Sky play next weekend with road matches against Montana and Montana State. The Vikings start the weekend at Montana in Missoula Saturday, Feb. 10, and then head to Bozeman for a match against Montana State Sunday, Feb. 11.
 
"If we play like we did today, we're going to win a lot of conference matches," Sterling said. "UP's a great team and we did a lot of the small stuff really well today. We started the points out really well today, which was across the board. Everybody did a great job. We'll go back to work next week and take what we can to Montana and keep doing our best."

Portland 6, Portland State 1
Feb 02, 2018 at Portland, Ore. (Louisiana Pacific Tennis Center) 

Singles competition

1. LUKIC, Jelena (UP) def. VALK, Alli (PSU) 7-5, 7-6 (8-6)

2. DIMITROVA, Radina (UP) def. PERI, Siena (PSU) 7-5, 6-1

3. ZADOR, Eszter (PSU) def. LEBLANC, Raphaelle (UP) 6-2, 6-2

4. RAMALLE, Lourdes (UP) def. UPENIECE, Gerda (PSU) 6-1, 6-3

5. OBERG, Anna (UP) def. KNECHT, Ashley (PSU) 6-1, 6-4

6. OKAZAKI, Laura (UP) def. No player (PSU), by default

 

Doubles competition

1. LUKIC, Jelena/LEBLANC, Raphaelle (UP) def. PERI, Siena/ZADOR, Eszter (PSU) 6-3

2. DIMITROVA, Radina/SOARES, Emily (UP) def. VALK, Alli/KNECHT, Ashley (PSU) 7-5

3. OBERG, Anna/RAMALLE, Lourdes (UP) def. No player/No player (PSU), by default

 

Match Notes

Portland State 0-3

Portland 1-2

Order of finish: Doubles (3,1,2); Singles (6,3,2,1,4,5)