LAKELAND, Fla. – The Fire keep pressing on in their challenging schedule. Southeastern University battled through adversity and added another win by defeating No. 6 Middle Georgia State, 5-2, on Monday afternoon.
Neleah Neiberline broke a 2-2 match and started a string of three singles matches to finish for the victory. Neiberline pulled the upset of Middle Georgia State's No. 50-ranked Ainhoa Fernandez in straight sets by scores of 6-4, 6-1.
"Awesome day for our women's team, super proud of them," pointed out Fire head coach Drew Dickens. "They had every excuse not to show up, with being sick, being fatigued, and playing so many matches. And the fact that they swept doubles, and took care of business in singles, which was super impressive."
The afternoon tone was set when the Fire claimed all three doubles pairings, including two tight matches with one tiebreaker.
Top SEU doubles team of Isabella Bolivar Garces/Irene Parigi completed first and took the victory by the widest margin (6-2) over Marina Prieto Gonfau/Fernandez.
Neiberline paired with Chloe Do Lago in the third team and rebounded after a rocky start and reversed the trend into a tiebreaker victory, 7-6 (7-2), over Yana Prihach/Aya El Marrasse. In fact, the SEU duo found themselves down 5-2 starting the match-up.
"It was tough, because Chloe and I haven't really got to play together," explained Neiberline. "We took advantage of the girls moving towards the center, which opened the opportunity for some line shots."
With her Monday wins, Neiberline pushed her streak of consecutive victories over ranked opponents (doubles and singles) to three.
Along with the challenging third doubles start, the Carlotta Nonnis Marzano/Alessia Ciampi second doubles had a similar beginning against Berta Castell/Tamanna Takoria. The SEU teammates lost five of the first six games, before they rebounded for a 6-1 ending for the 7-5 final score.
Trailing 2-1, No. 44 rated Bolivar Garces tied the team score when she took care of No. 64 Castello by identical 6-2, 6-2 tallies at second singles.
Following the Neiberline win, top singles Nonnis Marzano, who is ranked No. 28, prevailed by a 7-5 close set with Gonfau before she kept the momentum with a 6-1 second set final.
Irene Parigi captured the final SEU win at fourth singles when she only gave up three games (6-3, 6-0) against Takoria.
The Knights won the first two completed singles matches and they took a 2-1 lead. El Marrasse defeated the Fire's Do Lago (6-0, 6-0) and Prihach won the fifth singles against Ciampi via similar scores of 6-1, 6-1.
SEU continues its run of ranked opponents when it hosts No. 12 LSU-Alexandria on Wednesday afternoon in a 1 p.m. first serve.
