No. 9-seeded LSU women\u2019s tennis pulled off one of the biggest wins of its season on Friday, knocking off top-seeded Oklahoma 4-3 in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals to advance to the semifinals.<\/p>\n
The victory marks LSU\u2019s first SEC semifinal appearance since 2015 and just the fifth time in program history as the postseason surge continues on.<\/p>\n
With the dual tied at 3-3, all eyes shifted to Court 3, where LSU sophomore Ella McDonald delivered the clincher. McDonald battled through two tight sets, winning 7-6 and 7-6, to cap the upset.<\/p>\n
\u201cTremendous tennis match today,\u201d head coach Taylor Fogleman said. \u201cOklahoma is one of the top teams in the country and a co-SEC regular-season champion, so to compete like that on their home courts says a lot about our group.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory sparked a celebration from the LSU bench as the underdogs completed one of the biggest wins of the conference tournament. The No. 1 seed was sent back to Norman with heads hanging low after defeating LSU earlier this season with a final score of 0-4.<\/p>\n
LSU entered the day as the No. 9 seed and had already built momentum with earlier wins in the tournament, but facing the No. 1 overall seed presented its toughest test yet. Oklahoma jumped out early by securing the doubles point, putting the Tigers in an immediate hole.<\/p>\n
LSU responded in singles, trading courts throughout the afternoon to keep the match within reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew it would be a challenge, and I knew our girls would rise to it,\u201d Fogleman said. \u201cI thought we were right there in doubles, but the environment made things really tough late, and Oklahoma just edged us out. Our response in singles, though, was spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tigers picked up key victories in the middle of the singles lineup to even the match. Each team continued to answer, with the duel locked at three apiece as McDonald\u2019s match stretched into a decisive second-set tiebreak.<\/p>\n
After holding serve under pressure, she closed out the match with aggressive baseline play to secure the final point.<\/p>\n
The win marks one of LSU\u2019s biggest victories of the season and pushes the Tigers into the SEC Tournament semifinals for the first time in years. It also continues LSU\u2019s late-season run, which has found its rhythm at the right time heading into postseason play.<\/p>\n
With the upset, LSU advances to the semifinal round, where the Tigers will look to keep the Cinderella run alive and move one step closer to a conference title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 9-seeded LSU women\u2019s tennis pulled off one of the biggest wins of its season on Friday, knocking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-614860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}