NATCHITOCHES – A young Northwestern State tennis team exuded confidence at home Saturday as the Lady Demons swept UIW, 7-0, and Grambling, 6-0, at the Jack Fisher Tennis Complex.

NSU dropped just one set total Saturday, extending its winning streak to four matches after beating Arkansas Tech this past week and Air Force on Friday.

Coach Olga Bazhanova said the Lady Demons (5-7, 1-1 Southland Conference) are finding their groove as they prepare to host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Monday at 2 p.m.

"Winning really helps, but even though we were losing in the beginning, we knew our game and what we had to do," Bazhanova said. "We just had to keep working and improve, improve, improve.

"Our girls are mentally tough, and we have to keep working on our process and doing the right things. It's a good day to be a Demon."

NSU started with two doubles wins against UIW, led by Natalya Krutova/Polina Ivanova (6-3) and Polina Mutel/Iryna Vardanian (6-4).

Krutova is the only singles' player that needed three sets, edging Rachel Sadiq 2-6, 6-0 7-6/6) in the No. 1 position.

The rest of NSU's singles swept, including No. 2 Vardanian (6-4,6-1 over Matea Zemunik), No. 3 Mutel (6-2, 6-0 over Taryn Strahl), No. 4 Barbora Kollarova (6-4, 7-6/3 over Sarah Savedra), No. 5 Polina Ivanova (6-1, 6-1 over Maria Batchmsky) and No. 6 Alzbeta Veverkova (6-0, 6-0 over Antea Dedic).

"I got some confidence in the last few matches, and I started to be more aggressive," Kollarova said. "That's what helped me, especially in the first match, which was very close.

"Any time I got a little bit defensive, I started losing. But I came back aggressively, and that was the key. The whole team is getting into a rhythm and getting confidence. (TAMU-CC) will be a little tougher, and it was important to get these wins this weekend going into that one."

The Lady Demons pushed through Grambling in all six matches that were completed, starting with Krutova/Ivanova and Kollarova/Ilijiana Ivic in doubles play.

Vardanian (6-0, 6-1) won at the No. 2 singles spot, joining No. 3 Kollarova (6-0, 6-2), No. 4 Veverkova (6-1, 6-2) and No. 5 Ivic (6-0, 6-0). Krutova won the first set before the match was stopped in the second set.

"I played very aggressively in the first match and kept a lot of balls in," Veverkova said. "In the second match, I kept balls in again to get the win.
"We had a slower beginning to our season, but right now, we feel more confident and we feel we can beat a lot of teams."