Dixie stays united after tournament loss

The Dixie State College tennis team traveled to San Rafael, Calif., in hopes of leaving its mark in the Pacific West Championship tournament, but it came home with no titles in hand.

The PacWest tourney was April 19-21, and the Red Storm started the first day playing Hawaii Pacific University.

Dixie was seeded No. 5 going into the tournament and HPU, being the No. 2 seed, dominated in all the matches and only allowed one point.

The only point scored was in Sarah Hughes and Krista Anderson’s doubles match against HPU’s Vivian Hansen and Magdalena Smejova, in which the score ended 8-1.

The only matches played in the singles competition was by Anderson and Allison Evans, and they both had an ending score of 6-0, 6-0.

Even though Dixie State ended the day losing to Hawaii Pacific 0-5, Hughes, a sophomore general education major from Bountiful, said the team worked together and played well.

“Our conference is really hard,” Hughes said. “We have the No. 5 team in the nation in our conference, and we went out and played our best and played for every point.”

Friday was like a de ja vu for DSC when they played against University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Dixie dropped its consolation match 0-5 to Hilo, which was seeded No. 3.

Although the Red Storm lost, the women put up a fight.

“When we were playing we stayed aggressive and hit our shots,” said Kristen Nichols, a freshman communication major from Elwood. “We walked off the court feeling solid.”

In the doubles competition Anderson and Hughes lost to Melanie Viryapunt and Emelie Laussen 7-9, Evans and Lindsay Snow lost to Anna Hamlin and Lindsey Shin 8-6, and Nichols and Sierra Smith lost to Morrisa Kahakui and Chelsea Sato 9-7.

Nichols said her favorite part of the tournament was the tough competition.

“We had to step up our game to a whole new level,” Nichols said. “Everyone played one position higher because of an injury, and it was really cool to see everyone step up.”

In the singles competition, Anderson lost 6-1, 6-0 to Viryapunt, and Evans lost 6-4, 6-0 to Laussen.

The team came home defeated, but Hughes said the tournament was something the team is happy about.

“I think it went really well,” Hughes said. “I think we all came together as a team. This was our last tournament together because a lot of the girls are leaving, so we all came together and made it happen. We played hard.”

The Red Storm ended their season with an overall record of 8-10.