Wyoming shuts out North Dakota

Wyoming Senior, Sarah Sum­mer­field, earned her 65^th career sin­gles vic­tory and moved into first-place on the all-time UW women’s ten­nis wins list, as the Cow­girls returned home after being on the road for more than a month and earned a deci­sive 7–0 shut-out over the North Dakota Fight­ing Sioux, to con­clude non-conference play at the UW Ten­nis Courts, Fri­day afternoon.

Wyoming (10−5, 1–1 Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence) plays its final home matches against rivals BYU and Utah this week­end, while North Dakota (6−10) faces North­ern Col­orado in Greeley.

It was the first out­door home match of the sea­son, and the Cow­girls got off to a bit of a slow start with the windy con­di­tions, but they adjusted well and went onto sweep the dou­bles matches.

“I thought the con­di­tions were really dif­fi­cult. The wind was blow­ing and it was a lit­tle chilly,” UW coach Kati Gyu­lai said. “I thought we had a slower start, but we picked it up and we’re happy to win. We look for­ward to tomorrow.”

Kim van Ginkel and Simona Synkova started the day off with an, 8–2, win over Erin Kap­pers and Hal­lie Welk of UND. Sum­mer­field and Paloma Navarro dom­i­nated Emma Lar­son and Katie Cal­li­son, 8–1, while the duo of Alexan­dra Kovacs and Sasa Nem­cova also won, 8–1, over Megan Sween and Chelsey Gali­peau, to secure the dou­bles point for UW.

Sum­mer­field started off the sin­gles events with her his­tor­i­cal vic­tory over Cal­li­son, 6–2, 6–1.

“She knew the pres­sure was on and she played with a lot of energy,” Gyu­lai said about Sum­mer­field. “We’re very happy for her. I think it is a very well deserved award for her. Let’s hope she can keep win­ning and set the record even higher for the next person.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Sum­mer­field said about her record. “It’s a good feel­ing. I’m really glad I can leave my mark here for a lit­tle while, so the other girls can try and beat me in that.”

Kovacs defeated Kap­pers, 6–3, 6–1, Synkova downed Welk, 6–3, 6–3, van Ginkel beat Lar­son, 6–0, 6–0, Nem­cova bested Gali­peau, 6–2, 6–3, while Navarro won, 6–0, 6–1, over Sween.

The Cow­girls step back into MWC play with the BYU Cougars on Sat­ur­day at 12 p.m., at the UW Ten­nis Courts.