{"id":177329,"date":"2026-03-04T04:42:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177329\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T04:42:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:42:06","slug":"eagles-aim-to-bounce-back-in-jacksonville-following-loss-to-stetson-hatters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177329\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles aim to bounce back in Jacksonville following loss to Stetson Hatters"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dual match took place at the Mandy Stoll Tennis Complex with a 10 a.m. start time. For the Eagles, this encounter was significant as it represented their first outdoor competition of 2026. Entering the match with a 9-3<\/a> record, Eastern Michigan faced a Stetson team looking to level their own season record, which they successfully did, improving to 4-4<\/a> with the victory. The transition from indoor facilities to the Florida elements proved to be a factor as the Hatters utilized their home-court advantage to secure a dominant team win.<\/p>\n

The battle for the doubles point<\/p>\n

The competition began with a highly contested doubles round that nearly saw the Eagles take an early lead.<\/p>\n

Early exchange at No. 1 and No. 2<\/p>\n

Stetson struck first at the No. 1 doubles<\/a> position, where the duo of Anastasija Adeikyte and Katia Tuliakova defeated EMU\u2019s Kseniia Saenko and Cylova Zuleyka Hukmasabiyya with a score of 6-3. However, Eastern Michigan quickly responded at the No. 2 spot. The freshmen pair of Matilde Parreira and Sabrina Tolstova, who had recently been named the MAC Doubles Team of the Week<\/a>, continued their strong form by securing a 6-2 victory over Stetson\u2019s Astigarraga Harper and Dana Baidaulet.<\/p>\n

The deciding tiebreaker at No. 3<\/p>\n

With the doubles split at 1-1, the point rested on the results of the No. 3 match<\/a>. Iva Daneva and Regina Mendez Carre\u00f1o battled Stetson\u2019s Clelia Lombardi and Yuki Mizuguchi to a 6-6 deadlock, forcing a tiebreaker. The Hatters ultimately prevailed in the tiebreaker, winning the match 7-6 and securing the critical 1-0 lead heading into singles play.<\/p>\n

Singles competition breakdown<\/p>\n

While the doubles point was a narrow affair, Stetson found more separation in the singles matches, winning all six flights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Straight-set decisions<\/p>\n

The Hatters secured the team victory by winning the first five completed singles matches<\/a> in straight sets.<\/p>\n

No. 2 singles: Katia Tuliakova defeated Lara Diaz Zayas (6-0, 6-1).<\/p>\n

No. 4 singles: Yuki Mizuguchi defeated Pehal Kharadkar (6-1, 6-0).<\/p>\n

No. 1 singles: Astigarraga Harper defeated Cylova Zuleyka Hukmasabiyya (6-2, 6-3).<\/p>\n

No. 6 singles: Clelia Lombardi defeated Matilde Parreira (6-3, 6-2).<\/p>\n

No. 3 singles: Anastasija Adeikyte defeated Sabrina Tolstova (6-2, 6-4).<\/p>\n

The marathon at No. 5<\/p>\n

The final match to finish was at No. 5 singles<\/a>, featuring Kseniia Saenko<\/a> in her first singles appearance of the 2026 season. After dropping the first set 6-1, Saenko showed grit by taking the second set 6-4. The match moved to a 10-point tiebreaker instead of a third set, which Stetson’s Dana Baidaulet narrowly won 10-6 to complete the sweep.<\/p>\n

Historical significance and series record<\/p>\n

This matchup added a new chapter to the long-standing history between the two programs, which dates back to 1984. Although EMU still leads the all-time series 6-3<\/a>, they have now lost two consecutive matches to the Hatters. Notably, this was the first time Stetson had ever swept Eastern Michigan. Conversely, EMU holds two 9-0 sweeps over Stetson from the mid-1980s. All nine meetings between these programs have occurred in DeLand, Florida.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead: The road to MAC play<\/p>\n

The Eagles do not have much time to dwell on the loss, as their Florida trip continues.<\/p>\n

Next Match: Wednesday, March 4, against the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.
\nConference Outlook: This upcoming match will be the final non-conference tune-up before EMU begins Mid-American Conference (MAC) play on March 13. Their conference opener will be a home match against Northern Illinois University.<\/p>\n

The team remains focused on leveraging these high-level out-of-conference matches to prepare for the rigors of the MAC schedule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The dual match took place at the Mandy Stoll Tennis Complex with a 10 a.m. start time. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-177329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}