BGSU Travels to Wisconsin for a Pair of Weekend Duals

Friday, February 6

Milwaukee, WI

5:00 PM ET

Bowling Green State University

Marquette

BGSU tennis - Jan 25 2015 v Youngstown State

Sydney Seeley & the Falcons hit the road to face Marquette & Wisconsin

Photo by: Bianca Garza, BGSU Marketing and Communications

February 04, 2015 | Women's Tennis

Falcons face Marquette Friday, UW Saturday

By: BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (BGSU Athletic Communications)

The Bowling Green State University tennis team hits the road for a pair of matches in the state of Wisconsin this weekend. The Falcons of head coach Olga Elkin will face Marquette University in Friday action (Feb. 6), before meeting the University of Wisconsin the following day.

LINKS
Live Stats for Friday's Marquette Match
Marquette Tennis | Wisconsin Tennis

Friday's Marquette match will begin at 4:00 p.m. locally (5:00 p.m. Eastern) at Helfaer Tennis Stadium. Saturday's contest vs. UW is set for an 11:00 a.m. start locally (12:00 p.m. Eastern) at Nielsen Tennis Stadium.

The Falcons have been idle since facing a pair of Horizon League foes at the Perrysburg Tennis Center two weekends ago. BG dropped a 6-1 decision to Detroit (Jan. 23) and a 7-0 match against Youngstown State (Jan. 25).

BGSU's match at Michigan State, originally scheduled for last Sunday (Feb. 1), was postponed due to inclement weather. The BGSU-MSU match has been rescheduled for Saturday, Feb. 21, at 12:00 p.m. in East Lansing.

In BG's lone weekend of action so far, sophomore Harley Hutchison and freshman Megan Miller teamed up for a stellar weekend at the number-one doubles flight, going 2-0 against their Horizon League foes at the PTC. Hutchison and Miller never trailed in a 6-3 win over Detroit's duo of Sasha Nionova and Valeryia Kulikovskaya. The Falcon duo broke a 1-1 tie by winning four consecutive games, and after the Titans cut into that lead, Hutchison finished off the match by blistering a cross-court winner.

Then, the Hutchison/Miller team picked up another win, bursting out to a 4-0 lead against the Penguins' Marta Burak and Dominika Lackova, before YSU mounted a rally. Hutchison and Miller, however, won the decisive game to close out a 6-4 victory. Miller, one of five first-year Falcons in BG's six-player lineup, was partnering with Hutchison for the first time.

Miller split a pair of singles matches in her first-ever weekend of dual-match competition, with a win over UDM and a narrow loss to YSU. In her match against Detroit's Valeryia Kulikovskaya, Miller took a 3-0 lead and was never headed in winning a 6-1 opening set. Then, after the UDM junior won the second set in a tiebreaker, capturing that 'breaker by a narrow 8-6 score, Miller responded by bursting out to a 7-1 lead and holding off Kulikovskaya's attempt at a rally to win the 10-point tiebreaker in lieu of a third set. Miller won that tiebreaker by a 10-8 result.

Against the Penguins, Miller was the last match on the court for the second time on the weekend. After losing her opening set to YSU's Dominika Lackova, the freshman bounced back for a decisive 6-2 victory in set number two. In a back-and-forth 'breaker, Lackova ultimately pulled out a 10-8 win.

Miller, one of six first-year Falcons on the nine-player roster, leads Bowling Green with 10 overall wins this season to date.

Hutchison represented the Brown and Orange at the top singles flight on the opening weekend, with freshman Emily Witt, sophomores Leeah Floyd and Antonina Farrar and freshman Sydney Seeley playing at flights three through six, respectively. Hutchison was the only member of the lineup to have competed in a collegiate dual match prior to the UDM match.

Marquette will enter the weekend with a perfect 4-0 record during the dual-match campaign. Coach Jody Bronson's team has played all four matches at Helfaer Tennis Stadium, as Friday's BGSU dual concludes a five-match homestand for the Golden Eagles. Last weekend, Marquette posted a 6-1 victory over UIC and a 7-0 win against Green Bay. MU began the dual-match schedule with 6-1 wins over Bradley and Milwaukee. Last year, Bronson's team finished with a 13-11 record.

Wisconsin has a 1-1 record on the young season. The Badgers lost the opener to Drake, 4-3, forfeiting the match at the number-six singles flight due to an injury. On Sunday (Feb. 1), playing with a full lineup for the first time, UW defeated Eastern Michigan, 5-2. Last year, Tina Samara's club went 7-13 overall and 2-9 in Big Ten Conference play.

Marquette leads BGSU, 5-1, in the all-time series between the teams. The Falcons and Golden Eagles have not met in a dual match in nearly a decade, since a narrow 4-3 MU win in Milwaukee on Feb. 20, 2005. BGSU's lone series win came in the 1984-85 season in Delray Beach, Fla.

BGSU and Wisconsin have never met in dual-match play.

Following this weekend's matches, the Falcons will return home for a pair of contests. BGSU will host Cleveland state on Friday, Feb. 13, in a 6:00 p.m. start in Perrysburg. Then, the Brown and Orange will face Cincinnati on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 2:00 p.m. at the PTC.