EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Southeast Missouri Tennis (13-9, 5-0 OVC) wins a share of the OVC regular season title with a 4-3 win over Eastern Illinois (5-16, 2-3 OVC) Sunday afternoon at the Edwardsville YMCA Meyer Center.
The Redhawks have now won back-to-back-to-back regular season titles (2023-24-25) and four in the past five years, winning back in 2021 too.
Southeast Missouri did earn the No. 1 seed in the OVC tournament with the win today and they will clinch the regular season title outright with a win at Lindenwood on April 10 or a Western Illinois loss.
The Redhawks remain undefeated in conference play and with a win next week they would go undefeated in conference play for the third year in a row.
Juliette Demunck and Yontha Tadoum stayed undefeated in conference play at 5-0. Kristina Kozakova picks up her 11th win on the year and stays undefeated in OVC play also at 5-0.
Doubles play started out with Juliette Demunck and Yontha Tadoum completely tearing apart Ornella Lomenzo and Pilipovic-Kljaj on court 3. Demunck and Tadoum had everything working for them and they swept their opponent 6-0. EIU tied the doubles when Aleyla Wooten and Charleigh Fay beat Lera Valeeva and Kristina Kozakova 6-3 at the No. 1 position.
The doubles point would then be decided on court two just like on Friday. Maja Bajorek and Mia Mayerova took on Michelle Kostadinova and Renovales-Salazar. EIU held the lead for most of the match. EIU had match point winning 5-4 but Bajorek and Mayerova flipped the script and won 7-5 to clinch the doubles point.
In singles action, Valeeva made quick work of Wooten on court 1 winning 6-3, 6-1 to capture SEMO's point. EIU then captured their first point of the match when Lomenzo beat Tadoum 6-3, 6-2.
Mayerova went into a first set tie break on court five against Salazar and won 7-6. Mayerova didn't show any mercy in set two and quickly won 6-0. Kozakova went to a third set against Kostadinova at No. 4. Kozakova easily won the first 6-2, fell in the second 6-4, then won 6-2 in the third which would clinch the match for the Redhawks.
Demunck, featured on court three, lost a three set thriller against Fay. Demunck and Fay split set 1 & 2 with both of them winning 6-2. The third set rolled around and they both battled back and forth not giving up anything. In super tie break, Fay ended up winning 7-6. Claudia Casas was back in the line up today at No. 6 and she fell to Pilipovic-Kljaj 6-4, 6-1.
Coach Brooks was very happy the team got the win stating, "The most important thing about this match was that we clinched the OVC regular season title, we are champions! That's not what anyone thought would happen coming into the season. Our roster featured a No. 5, 6, and 7 from last season. We brought in two more in January, fought hard and now we are conference champs!
"This SEMO team is not the SEMO teams of the past, we have to fight harder and battle for our wins. EIU fought really hard today, they came to play. The outcome wasn't what they wanted but we got to 4 first so like I said before we are conference champs. Almost everyone got a win today, so I'm happy that our work is paying off. We've still got some work to do, there's a few things we need to clean up but we are really tough. One Day Better!" is what Coach Brooks had to say about the match today.
The Redhawks will be back in action Thursday, April 10 to take on the Lindenwood Lions in St. Charles, Mo., at 1 p.m., CT.
