Women’s Tennis Makes Noise at MVC Individual Championships

Shockers competed for a combined six individual championships this past weekend at the MVC tennis tournament in St. Louis.

Saturday morning, Rebecca Pedrazzi defeated Natasha James of Evansville 6-4, 6-4 at the one position to find herself in the finals. Montse Blasco-Fernandez and Summer Schlotterback also won at the four and six, respectively, to play for their respective finals.

“As a team, we played well,” Schlotterback said. “Even if we were down, our spirit never dropped.”

In doubles, the Shockers swept the field Saturday morning to put all three duos in the final matches.

Julia Schiller, Abby Stevens and Satjaporn Mahajaroenkul will play for third place in their positions.

Sunday morning, Pedrazzi went on to capture the championship at the one position in straight sets 6-1, 6-1. This is the second singles championship Pedrazzi has won in as many years.

Blasco-Fernandez captured her third singles championship title with a win over Ariadna Cairo Baza 6-1, 7-6 (4) at the fourth position.

Schiller fell to Astrid Santos of UNI in the third place match at the two position.

“We had our chances, and we will get them next time,” Schiller said. “We are already excited to work on our game the next two weeks, and we will be ready for regionals.”

One of the three doubles teams managed to win a championship. The team of Veronika Blaskova and Mahajaroenkul beat the Illinois State team 8-6.

“This is my second time I have played doubles with Vero,” Mahajaroenkul said. “Since [she] is injured, I think this weekend was huge for her. As a team, I think we played hard and fought like we always do. I’m really proud of Becky and Montse.”

The Shockers are back in action Oct. 17-21 in Norman, Okla.