The combination of Sheryl Posch and Lacey McMunn has catapulted the two to a seventh place ranking in the region.

But, the combination of Posch and Lacey McMunn didn’t prove effective against Anastasia Cisco and Victoria Garcia of Lincoln University on April 14. Posch and Lacey McMunn were leading the match 6-3 but with mistakes fell 9-7. The season record for 2002-03 for Posch and Lacey McMunn is 14-8. The No. 2 doubles spot proved more effective for the Lady Lions. Kim McMunn and Amy Stredney overcame Kim Harvey and Tanisha Hall (8-3). Julie Wengert, women’s tennis coach, said Kim McMunn and Stredney started off slow but were able to win their match.

The No. 3 doubles of Halee Phillips and Christina Broyles were defeated by Ffion Fletcher and Ashley Armour (8-0). Wengert said the goal of Phillips and Broyles is to win as many games as possible. Their record for the season is 4-12.

“Their beginning to start to play better together; every time they go out there they look a lot better than they have in the past” she said.

“They have their goals they have to meet.”

Right after a tough loss Posch and Lacey McMunn went out and played their singles matches. Posch lost to Garcia (6-1, 6-0) and Lacey McMunn lost to Cisco (6-2, 6-2).

Wengert believes Posch and Lacey McMunn weren’t ready to play another match.

“I don’t know if they were mentally prepared to go out and win a singles match after that,” she said.

“I know the wind played a big factor in everybody’s matches, too. Like I tell the girls every time the other team is playing in the wind too, be ready to use it to your advantage.”

Kim McMunn played a hard match where in the second set she won, but in the third set Fletcher didn’t make any mistakes. Fletcher won the match (6-2, 3-6, 6-2). Stredney won an easy match against Armour (6-1, 6-0). Harvey defeated Phillips (6-1, 6-0), and Broyles fell to Hall (8-1).

“Halee struggled a little bit, but she wasn’t feeling very well yesterday, and she went ahead and played,” Wengert said. “She needs to work on her consistency. A lot of the girls on the team mentioned that Christina is improving every day and they’re just surprised at how good she looks for only having played for two months.”

The Lady Lions who are currently 5-11 are preparing to head to conference on April 18-19 at Northwest Missouri State University.

If the tournament gets rained out it will be moved to St. Joseph which has indoor courts.

Wengert hoped the matches against LU would prepare the team for conference, but after the loss she plans to hold some “productive and very intense practices.”

“I was a little disappointed with yesterday’s (April 14) match,” she said. “I felt like a lot of the people weren’t ready to play a match yesterday.

They had the whole weekend off and it looked like they had two weeks off by the way they were playing yesterday.”

She said before the match she thought the team was ready for conference. Through practices she hopes to raise the spirits of the team in preparation for the conference tournament.