TACOMA - Pacific Lutheran played Lewis & Clark tough in most of the individual matches, but they didn't have enough to finish the task on Saturday as the visiting Pioneers took a 6-3 Northwest Conference women's tennis win on Saturday at the UPS Tennis Pavilion.

Lewis & Clark opened with two doubles wins, though both were close. At No. 1, Whitney DeBree and Isabelle Borris beat Leah Newell and Tina Aarsvold, 8-6, while Jill Coleman and Olivia Sweetman defeated Deanna Ellmer and Hailey Rile, 8-6, at No. 2.

The Lutes picked up their first team point of the match at No. 3 doubles where Saiyare Refaei and Amanda Peterson took down Makena McCluskey and Catherine Eichhorn, 8-3.

Newell, dropped the first set 6-0 before rallying back to upset DeBree, 0-6, 7-5, 6-4, to win at No. 1 singles. The Lutes got their other singles win at No. 6, where Sophia Ro topped Eichhorn, 6-2, 6-3. The No. 4 singles match went to a third set, and then to a tiebreaker, before L&C's McCluskey came back for a 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) victory over Ellmer.

The other singles matches went in straight sets to Lewis & Clark - Borris over Aarsvold and Coleman over Refaei, both by 6-1, 6-0 scores, and Sweetman over Rile, 6-1, 6-4.

Pacific Lutheran is now 2-5 overall and 0-5 in the conference, while the Pioneers are 2-6 overall and 2-4 in the NWC. PLU returns to action next weekend with a trip the eastern side of the state, playing against Whitman on Friday and Whitman on Saturday.

- PLU -