The West Virginia University tennis team’s season ended Wednesday evening, as the Mountaineers fell 4-3 to Kansas State in a hard-fought battle in the first round of the Big 12 Championships at the Hurd Tennis Center in Waco, Texas.
WVU (8-17, 2-11 Big 12) took a 2-1 lead after two singles victories, but the No. 15 seed Mountaineers ultimately fell to the No. 10 seed Wildcats (10-11, 6-7 Big 12). Kansas State advanced to the second round by winning three of the final four singles matches.
Kansas State opened up the doubles point with an easy victory at No. 1 doubles. Their tandem of Maralgoo Chomsomjav and Charlotte Keitel scored a 6-2 victory over WVU’s Julie Bousseau and Mille Haagensen. The Mountaineers fought back in the No. 2 spot, with Michaela Kucharova and Laura Villanueva Morillo taking down Kansas State’s Sana Garakani and Maria Santos 6-2. Kucharova and Villanueva Morillo closed out their year with three straight doubles victories, going 10-4 overall as a pairing. But it wasn’t enough, as the Wildcats’ No. 3 pairing of Veronika Kulhava and Tereza Polakova defeated Tatiana Lipatova and Lyla Byers 6-3, winning the doubles point for K-State.
West Virginia responded quickly in the singles, taking two matches in quick succession to go in front. Kucharova defeated Santos 6-0, 6-2 in the No. 3 slot, tying it up at 1-1. Lipatova then scored a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Garakani in the No. 6 singles, giving the Mountaineers their first lead of the day.
It wouldn’t last long. Kansas State quickly tied the match when Chomsomjav defeated Bousseau 6-2, 6-4 in the No. 1 matchup. Villanueva Morillo then gave the Mountaineers their last win of the season, defeating Polakova 6-0, 6-3 to put West Virginia ahead 3-2.
But the Mountaineers could not find the win they needed to keep their season alive. At No. 4 singles, Kulhava pulled the Wildcats even by winning her match with Byers, 6-0, 6-4. That left everything up to the No. 2 singles match, the only one to go the full three sets. Haagensen staved off elimination by overcoming a 5-4 deficit in the second set to win 7-5, forcing a final set to give the Mountaineers hope.
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But that proved the end of the road for West Virginia, as Keitel never let Haagensen get into the final set. The Wildcats’ sophomore easily closed out her seventh three-set match of the year, winning 6-1 to close out the match and earn the victory for Kansas State.
The Mountaineers closed out the year with an 8-17 mark and finished in a three-way tie for 13th with Cincinnati and Colorado. West Virginia didn’t win a single league match at home, and the Mountaineers’ only road wins came at Houston and Cincinnati, two of the four weakest teams in the league. They did manage to win multiple road matches for the first time as a member of the Big 12 Conference, which they joined in 2012.
The Mountaineers’ defeat means that their streak of never winning a match at the Big 12 tournament will continue for another year. West Virginia last won a conference tournament match in 2008 when it defeated Connecticut as a member of the Big East.
Kansas State continues its season tomorrow, as it will take on No. 7 seed BYU in the second round at 8 p.m.
