Dubuque, 5

Loras, 4

The Loras College women's tennis team dropped their closest match of the 2012 season on a windy Wednesday at the Loras College tennis courts to the University of Dubuque Spartans, 5-4. 

The Duhawks were off on the right foot, taking two of three doubles matches to start the day. The #1 pair of Elizabeth Dickhut and Est Mungai cruised to an 8-2 win and Rebecca Weglarz and Caroline Rainey combined to win the #3 match, 8-4, over their Spartan opponents.

When the action turned to singles, #1 Duhawk Elizabeth Dickhut squared off with Nichole Schmaltz, who was a part of the #2 doubles for Dubuque and didn't play against Dickhut in the doubles round. Dickhut went on to win 6-2, 6-1 for Loras' third win of the day. She improved to 7-2 on the year with the win and remained perfect at 4-0 in the IIAC.

The final win for Loras came at #5 singles where Caroline Rainey provided a matching win - 6-2, 6-1 - over Aoi Karino.

Losses at 2, 3, 4, and 6 singles was enough to push the visitors past the Duhawks.

The closes of those matches was the matchup at #4. Loras' Sarah Alt and Dubuque's Stephanie LoCasto split the first two sets, each 7-5. The tiebreaker went all the way to 10-8, where LoCasto helped her team to the win column.

The loss dropped the Duhawks to 0-10, and 0-4 in Iowa Conference competitions. The team is on the road on Saturday to play Buena Vista and Bethany Lutheran on Saturday. They'll play their final home event of the fall on October 3 when the Wartburg Knights come to Dubuque for a 4:15 start.