The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's team scored a 5-2 win over visiting Western Carolina at McCallie's Strang-Voges Tennis Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., tonight.  The Mocs dropped the doubles point, but won five of six singles to improve to 8-6 overall and 3-2 in Southern Conference action.

WCU (9-8, 2-4 SoCon) posted a win at No. 1 doubles before junior Delaney Edwards and sophomore Annie Tarwater evened the match with a win at No. 3.  WCU clinched the opening point by taking the No. 2 match.

The Catamounts actually went up 2-0 with a win at No. 2 singles.  That put a lot of pressure on the rest of the Mocs, who were all battling in tough singles matches.

Freshman Emma Van Hee was the first to respond, posting a (6-2, 6-1) straight-sets win over Alexa Webb at No. 5.  It was her team-high eighth win of the spring. 

The Mocs were still in trouble, with freshman Bogdana Zaporozhets losing a tiebreaker in the first set and junior Caroline Hall down two set points in a tiebreaker at No. 3.  Hall battled back against Lauren McCall to score a 9-7 win in her first set tiebreaker. 

In the meantime, senior Samantha Caswell evened the match at 2-2 with a win at No. 1.  Hall raced out to a 4-0 lead in the second set and eventually took the match (7-6 (7), 6-4) to put the Mocs up 3-2. 

That left Zaporozhets and junior Tamri Chalaganidze still on the court in three-set battles.  UTC needed one of these final matches to clinch the team victory. 
Chalaganidze won her first set against Savannah Taranto, but lost the second in a tiebreaker.  She powered her way through the final frame to clinch the team victory (6-1, 6-7 (3), 6-1).

After losing the opening set in a tiebreaker, Zaporozhets only lost two games in the last two frames of her win over Carli Deehr (6-7 (4-7), 6-2, 6-0).

"We had to give it everything we had," stated head coach Chad Camper.  "Western Carolina is a much-improved program  and we had to fight them until the end.  They are a team everyone will have to look out for in the future. 

"Our veteran players stepped up when needed.  We did a great job to collect ourselves after losing the doubles point and take care of business.  Especially Emma getting that first win and Carolina coming back after being down in the first set."

Up next for the Mocs is a Tuesday match against Mercer.  First serve is set for Tuesday, April 10, at 4:00 p.m. (E.D.T.) at the Baylor School Courts.