NASHVILLE, Tenn. – No. 7 Georgia outlasted No. 25 Vanderbilt in Sunday afternoon’s match, as the Bulldogs beat the Commodores 4-3 in a nearly five hour match.
The Commodores started off early, winning the doubles point. Ashleigh Antal and Marie Casares beat Kate Fuller and Lauren Herring 8-3 to even the point after Maho Kowase and Lilly Kimbell beat Nelly Radeva and Megan Gornet 8-0. Jackie Wu and Lauren Mira clinched the doubles point for the 1-0 lead heading into singles, beating Chelsey Gullickson and Nadja Gilchrist 8-3.
It was a duel in singles play, as both teams battled back and forth for the points. The Bulldogs won the first two singles matches to go up 2-1, but Nelly Radeva battled back to make it 2-2, beating Fuller 6-2, 6-4.
Georgia took the lead again when Maho Kowase beat Antal in three sets. Antal, after dropping her first set 6-3, fought back and won her second set 6-2 to force a third, but Kowase won it 6-3.
Casares, after dropping her first set 6-0, pulled back to beat Gilchrist to keep the team in the match.
With that, the deciding match came down to Mira and Lauren Herring on court two. Herring took the first set 7-6 (7-4), while Mira swept 6-0 through the second set. The two went back and forth, with Mira breaking match point three times before falling 7-5.
The Commodores fall to 13-7 (5-3), while the Bulldogs move ahead to 17-2 (7-1). Vanderbilt travels to Ole Miss and Mississippi State next weekend as they finish the road portion of their season.
