Both the Prairie View A&M University men’s and women’s tennis teams capped off a successful weekend on the court by earning berths to the 2006 SWAC Tennis Tournament.The Lady Panthers finished the SWAC West Round-ups with a 2-2 record. They earned victories over Arkansas-Pine Bluff (4-0) and Grambling State (4-0) with defeats to Southern (1-4) and Texas Southern (2-4). Leading the way for the Lady Panthers was freshman Melanie Brown.
Brown finished the round-ups with an impressive 3-0 record in singles and was 4-0 in doubles play with partner Michelle Scurry.
“The ladies put forth a solid effort on the court,” said head coach John Cochran. “They fought in every match and as a result, they achieved their goal of earning a spot in the SWAC tournament.”
On Wednesday, March 15, the Lady Panthers traveled to face the Louisiana State Tigers in non-conference action. LSU defeated the Lady Panthers 6-1 with Prairie View’s lone victory coming from Charli Cooksey (6-0, 6-2).
The Panther men finished last weekend’s round-ups with a 3-1 record. They opened the round-ups with a 5-0 victory over Grambling State and followed it up with victories over Southern (4-1) and Arkansas-Pine Bluff (5-1). With the top seed in the SWAC tournament on the line against Texas Southern in the final match, the Panthers fell to their SWAC rival 4-0.
“We held up under pressure this weekend, but against Texas Southern we broke down and didn’t give the bottom half of our lineup a chance to win the match,” Cochran said. “Our top three players, Kudzai Chiridza, Andy Narido and Nicolas Bateman, had a consistent weekend, but as a team, we need to work on our execution and attacking the opposing team’s weaknesses if we plan on defending our SWAC title in April.