April 1, 2006

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Thundering Herd tennis team picked up a hard-fought, 5-2 win over UCF Saturday afternoon in Louisville, Ky., at the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center to complete a successful 2-0 weekend with wins over No. 72 ranked Louisville and the Golden Knights.

Marshall improves to 15-6 on the year with the win and UCF falls to 10-7 on the year. The win marks the first for Marshall over a Conference USA opponent since joining the league this year. It is Marshall's only match against a C-USA foe until the league tournament in Dallas because there is no regular season for Conference USA tennis.

Thundering Herd head coach John Mercer also picked up his 75th career win as head coach at Marshall University.

Marshall started by sweeping the doubles point. The Herd picked up wins from Jeanne Schwartz and Jessica Keener at No. 3 (8-6) and Shannon Brown and Karolina Soor (8-4) to clinch the doubles point. On court one, Lynzee Kever and Kellie Schmitt fought back from 7-4 down to complete the sweep, winning 8-7 after taking the tiebreaker.

In singles, it was quite a battle between the two squads as Marshall picked up straight set wins on courts two and three from Schmitt and Schwartz to go up 3-0 in the match. Schmitt defeated Elvira Serrot 6-1, 6-4 and Schwartz knocked off Kenza Belbacha 6-2, 6-4 to give the Herd an early advantage. However, Marshall would need wins from its freshman from the No. 5 and 6 positions to finish of the Golden Knights. UCF won at No. 1 and No. 4 in singles.

After splitting sets (6-3, 5-7), Soor came back to take the third set 6-1 over Megan Hunter to seal the match for the Herd at No. 5 singles. Also, after the sets were split on court six, another freshman, Keener pulled out her match over Kyla Mcnicol in the third set for a 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 win to complete the final score at 5-2.

"It was great to have our freshman step up and win at the end for us," Mercer said. "I'm glad we finished off the weekend with another win and hopefully we'll continue to keep getting better as we head into the Conference USA tournament in a few weeks."

The Herd returns to action next weekend in Cincinnati, Ohio to take on the University of Cincinnati Bearcats and the Miami RedHawks.