PARKLAND – Pacific Lutheran is making up for lost time at the outset of the 2013 women's tennis season, defeating the visiting Willamette Bearcats, 6-3, in a Northwest Conference match played Saturday afternoon at Sprinker Tennis Center.

The victory was PLU's fourth straight to open the season, all against conference opponents, while Willamette is now 0-5 overall and 0-4 in the NWC.

A 27-match conference winless streak dating back to the 2010 season is receding in the rearview mirror for Pacific Lutheran, which sits alone atop the conference standings. The last time that a Pacific Lutheran women's tennis team opened with four straight wins was 2001.

The Lutes won two of the three doubles matches to get off on the right foot and then added victories in four of the six singles competitions.

Pacific Lutheran's second doubles team of Leah Newell and Tina Aarsvold continued their excellent start, winning for the fourth straight time with a 8-0 whitewash of Rachel Heringer and Stephanie Matsuura. Third doubles went to PLU by the same score with Allison McClure and Katherine Patton topping Yasmine Genena and Emily Guimont.

Willamette won at first doubles when Denise Poltavski and Sabrina Gutierrez combined to beat Samantha Lund and Payton McGriff, 8-1.

Poltavski and Gutierrez also provided the Bearcats with their only two singles wins. In the featured singles match, Poltavski defeated Lund, 7-5, 6-1, and at second singles it was Gutierrez over Newell, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3.

After that, it was all PLU.

McGriff was a winner at third singles, beating Heringer 7-5, 6-4, and Aarsvold remained unbeaten in all competitions this season with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Matsuura at fourth singles.

The fifth-and-deciding team point was provided by Allison McClure at sixth singles with a 6-2, 7-6 (8-6) win over Genena. Catherine Miolla finished the match with a 7-5, 6-3 triumph over Mandy Carlson at fifth singles.

Pacific Lutheran is back in action at 3:30 p.m. Friday, March 1, when it hosts the Puget Sound Loggers in another conference match.

- PLU -