The Houghton University Women's Tennis team battled SUNY Fredonia in an epic match that lasted over four hours in length Monday evening. The Lady Highlander's would give it all they had, but came up short with a final score of 7-2. 

While the Fredonia Blue Devils got out to a hot start, taking the second and third doubles points, the first doubles pairing of Arija Grant and Alexandria Leary held strong to force a tiebreak on court one. In a thrilling match that took and hour and a half to complete, Leary and Grant came out victorious 8-7 (11-9). The other winner of the evening for Houghton, came from Kelsi Clapper at the sixth singles position. In her first ever collegiate victory, she closed out a tight second set winning 6-2, 7-6 (10-8). 

Other strong efforts in singles came from Leary, at second singles, who played the most exciting match of the evening. After splitting sets with her opponent, she fell in the final set tiebreaker 6-7(3), 6-4, 8-10 in a match that ended after 10pm. MyaKay Bartman also played a strong match at fifth singles falling in a close two set match 6-3, 6-4. 

"I am proud of the way our team fought tonight against a really challenging style of play that Fredonia threw at us," Coach Zach Shilvock said post match. "I am specifically so happy and proud of Kelsi for earning her first college win. She has been making amazing strides in practice, so it is awesome to see her hard work pay off with a result. As a group, I think we can learn a lot from this defeat and be better for it."