Palo Alto, California – The Huskies started the first day of the Pac-12 North invitational with a dominant win vs Utah and a tough loss to No. 9 California. With some rain on the forecast, the Huskies got started bright and early. After coming off two wins the weekend before, Washington was feeling confident going into day one.
“We did a really nice job this morning in our 8am match. It could have been a difficult one to wake up to,” Head coach Derek Olson said, “One through five all took care of business, so that was nice to see. “
The No. 9 Cal squad made some lineup changes from the previous meeting of the two teams. Coach Olson commented on his teams’ efforts.
“I thought we had some chances in our match against Cal to make things more interesting, but we couldn’t quite stay consistent enough,” Olson said, “Everyone was mostly in it but we just need to find ways to get over the hump against some of these top 10 teams”
Washington will face No. 4 UCLA and Arizona State tomorrow at 8 am and 12 pm.
Utah
Starting off the day the Huskies took on the Utah Utes. Pairs No. 2 and No. 4 took to the courts first, followed by pairs 1, 3, and 5. The first pair to finish up were Teagan DeFalco and Mary Sinclair who defeated Cottam/Wessel. The pair won 21-13, 21-17 setting the tone for the match. Shortly after, Huskies Piper Monk-Heidrich and Kendall Mather defeated Messier/McAlister 21-13, 21-17 to give the Huskies their second point.
After those games concluded the remainder of the pairs took to the courts. At pair No. 5, Huskies Hannah Yerex and Shannon Gormally defeated Utah’s Jacinto/Pitzak 21-18, 21-18 to secure the match win for the Huskies.
To put an exclamation on it, Huskies Scarlett Dahl and Paloma Bowman defeated Vezzani/Karich in a dominant 21-14, 21-10 performance. Followed by, top pair Natalie Robinson and Chloe Loreen defeating Andrews/Narancich 21-16, 21-12 to give the Huskies the 5-0 sweep over the Utes.
California
The second game of the day was against The No. 9 Cal Bears. This was the third meeting between Washington and Cal, the last just the previous weekend. Cal had just previously lost to No. 4 UCLA, playing the Huskies immediately after. With hopes to end the streak, Washington comes up short with a 1-4 loss.
The Huskies took to the court two pairs at a time, No. 5 and No. 4 playing first. No. 5 pair Hannah Yerex and Shannon Gormally lost their game to Buchner/Young-Gomez 24-22,…
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