Passing the midpoint in their conference schedule, the Vanderbilt Commodores went on a weekend road trip for away matches against No. 11 Texas A&M and LSU. Similar to the rest of conference play, it was a mixed bag of results for Vanderbilt who came up short against the Aggies before bouncing back against LSU. Vanderbilt was unable to secure a point against a dominant Texas A&M team on Friday, losing 7-0, but came back strong on Sunday in a close 4-3 victory over the Tigers.
Starting their weekend with a Friday trip to College Station, Vanderbilt came up short against the second-best team in the SEC. The Aggies entered the match as one of only two teams in the conference with five wins and kept their momentum with a dominant performance. The Commodores lost the doubles point in two close matches, as Bridget Stammel and Valeria Ray fell 6-4 before Holly Staff and Amy Stevens were retired in a 6-3 affair.
The Aggies were commanding on the singles courts with no match even reaching a third set. Highlights for the Commodores were Stevens narrowly falling 6-4, 6-4 to Dara Smetannikov and Staff losing 6-3, 7-5. Generally, though, it was a rough outing for the Commodores in their worst loss of the season.
Despite the rough loss, Vanderbilt did well to put that result behind them when they traveled to Baton Rouge on Sunday to close out the weekend. The Commodores flipped the script in the doubles point, with Stammel/Ray winning 6-2 and Staff/Stevens winning 6-3 to claim the point.
The doubles point would end up proving crucial, as the six singles matches were split evenly between the sides. Vanderbilt’s victories were kicked off by their No. 1 singles player, Célia-Belle Mohr, who won in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4, over Teixido Garcia. Sonya Macavei came up big for the Commodores with a 6-3, 6-3 victory before Lee clinched the match for the Commodores with an impressive 7-5, 6-1 victory on court No. 3.
After splitting the weekend matches, the Commodores now sit at 4-3 in the conference and 9-5 overall for the spring season. They will return home to take on the Arkansas Razorbacks on March 29 at 4:00 p.m. CDT.
