No lie: VSU knocks off Penn State

By Anthony Gagliano

anthony.gagliano@gaflnews.com



More than a few people thought John Hansen was lying on Sunday.

"I told a couple of people we beat Penn State, and they said, 'Not that Penn State?'" Hansen said.

The VSU women's tennis team did in fact knock off the Division I Nittany Lions and in dramatic fashion at that, securing the 4-3 victory with a win in a third-set tiebreaker. Annika Biro won the decisive match at No. 3 singles, taking the tiebreaker 7-5. The back-and-forth match featured five tiebreakers to really raise the excitement. VSU hadn't played since an exhibition against ABAC on Feb. 22 thanks to a pair of rainouts.

"We're still not sure how good we are," Hansen said.

On Sunday in Peachtree City, the Blazers (6-0) were good enough to knock off the No. 71 team in Division I, according to the ITA Tennis rankings. Top seed Eva Petsching, playing in her second match after sitting out the first four due to a NCAA imposed suspension for playing in a German summer league, plowed through a first set tiebreaker to win in straight sets.

The team needed to rebound in singles after losing the doubles point. Using Division I scoring, PSU won Nos. 2 and 3 doubles to take a 1-0 lead into singles.

"We had a shaky start, but fortunately they didn't know who Penn State was," Hansen said. "Penn State came out on fire, but they saw that we weren't going away."

That proved to be true as No. 2 Ann Corten battled through three sets to hand VSU another point. No. 5 Iris Staub finished things off in a second-set tiebreaker, leaving the pressure on Biro. A participant in last fall's Small College National Championship, Biro won 7-6 in the first set, then dropped a 6-3 decision in the second set before her rally in the final set.