LAKELAND â€" After sweeping through doubles play to take a 3-0 lead, #20 Florida Southern got two dominating wins from junior Sabine Goge and sophomore Olivia Spagnuolo to clinch the match, and went on to defeat #39 West Virginia State, 8-1, Tuesday afternoon at the Wynee Warden Tennis Center. The win was the sixth straight for the Moccasins, with five coming by 8-1 or 9-0 scores.
It was Spagnuolo (Andover, MA) and sophomore Christie Nunnemann (St. Simons Island, GA) who gave the Moccasins (8-5) their first team point with an 8-2 win at No. 2 doubles. Junior Joalis Dominguez (Vero Beach, FL) and junior Laura Wichmann (Waldshut-Tiengen, Germany) followed with the same winning score a few minutes later. Meanwhile, Goge (Cesis, Latvia) and sophomore Magda Ruitort (Petra, Spain) fought off Brittany Franco and Andreea Slusarciuc by winning the final four games of their match at No. 1 singles for an 8-3 decision.
Goge, who is ranked #35 in the nation in singles, and #9 in the South Region, opened singles play with a 6-1, 6-1 victory at the No. 2 position over Slusarciuc, who is also #9 in the East Region. Spagnuolo then secured the win for Florida Southern with a 6-0, 6-1 win at No. 5. The win by Goge improved her dual match record to 11-1 this year, while Spagnuolo remained perfect at 5-0.
Dominguez and Wichmann each lost just three games in their 2-set wins at No. 3 and No. 6 respectively, and Riutort, who is ranked #11 in the nation, won her seventh straight match at the top singles flight by defeating Franco, the #7 player in the East Region, 6-2, 6-2.
West Virginia State (15-4) picked up its only team point from Cora Berna at No. 4 singles. The Yellow Jackets, who have already won the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title this year, are in the midst of a 5-match trip to Florida. They fell to 0-3 in the Sunshine State where they were scheduled to face four top-20 teams from the SSC.
Florida Southern’s next match will be Thursday at 2:00 p.m. against #17 Nova Southeastern in Davie.
