January 15th, 2024
Final: NC State 7 SMU 0
Raleigh, NC– On Monday the 9th ranked NC State Wolfpack Women’s Tennis team opened up their full season home opener against the SMU Mustangs at the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center. The 2 teams entered the contest tied at 3 games a piece in their history of competition against each other and both teams earned NCAA tournament bids and the Wolfpack earned tournament runner-up last season losing in the championship match to North Carolina.
The Match kicked off with the doubles matches. The number 1 doubles match had Sophie Adams and Anna Zyryanova took on the 2 graduate seniors in Taylor Johnson and Lana Mavor.
Junior Drew Morris and Freshman Caroline McGinley were the match 2 doubles partners for SMU and Maddy Zampardo and Ameila Rajecki took the court for the Wolfpack in the 2nd doubles match.
The third doubles match saw Gabriella Broadfoot and Abigail Rencheli team up for the Wolfpack against Hadley Doyle and Maja Makoric
The Wolfpack were able to sweep the doubles matches to take an early 1-0 advantage heading in to the 6 singles matches. The match was won convincingly with a score of 6-1, 6-1.
The singles matches featured 6 individual matches and the Wolfpack were able to take a 2-0 match lead after Sophie Abrams won in straight sets 6-1, 6-1 over Caroline McGinley. Abrams was able to keep McGinley on her toes all match as she had several baseline winners. Abrams played her game and won several rallies with deep baseline shots that kept McGinley moving.
On court 1, Ameila Rajecki took on Taylor Johnson and earned a straight set 6-4, 6-2 win to extend the Wolfpack lead to 3-0. Rajecki, who is NC State’s highest ranked returning player breezed through the second set with several winners and earned the third win of the day.
The Wolfpack were able to take the match win with a 3rd singles win by Freshman Maddy Zampardo who took down Lana Mavor in straight sets 6-3, 6-4. The freshman hit several powerful forehand winners that landed the final needed match win.
The 4th singles match was the most competitive on court 2 which went to a third set. Abigail Rencheli was forced in to a second set tiebreak against Drew Morris. Rencheli ended up winning the 3rd set to earn the Wolfpack’s 5th point of the match with the final 2 matches on-going.
The 5th singles match also went the Pack’s way in straight sets as Gina Dittman beat Maja Makoric from SMU to give the Pack a commanding 6-0 lead in the match.
The 6th and final singles match was between 2 freshmen Kristina Paskauskas from NC State and the freshman Millie Skelton from SMU. Paskauskas took the first set 6-4 wearing down Skelton with several forehand and backhand winners to keep the freshman moving throughout the match. The second set was also never in doubt as Skelton was overpowered throughout the set. Paskauskas closed out the match sweep for the Pack as she earned the second win 6-1 pto give the Pack the 7-0 sweep in the series opener.
Next up for the Pack is a Saturday matchup against Campbell!
