Senior Elena Lordolaimi is finishing her final season at UH with strength as she took one of the Cougars’ singles court wins Friday. | File Photo/The Cougar

The UH tennis team came back from a 1-0 deficit to defeat SMU, 4-1, in the American Athletic Conference Championship semifinals on Friday. The win extends the teams’ record winning streak to 18.

SMU set the pace early, winning the doubles point and, at one point, led UH in the first set on five of six singles courts. The Cougars weathered the storm, however, and came up with the victory.

“SMU is a very talented team, and they took it to us at the beginning of the match in both doubles and the start of singles,” said Houston head coach Patrick Sullivan in a news release. “But our team has character; we know what to do in that moment and we have the rarest quality in a team. When things get hot, we play our best.”

In the doubles match up, Macie Elliot and Mary Wright won court three, 6-1, over UH’s Angela Lorenzo and Mina Markovic. The Cougars would then fight back on the second court with Rocio Martin and Tina Rupert doubling up Hirstina Dishkova and Holly Verner, 6-3.

The doubles point came down to a back-and-forth battle between Houston’s Elena Kordolaimi and Despoina Vogasari and SMU’s Vaszilisza Bulgakova and Dasha Sharapova. UH was the first to earn a match point but couldn’t capitalize on the lead and fell short to SMU, 7-5.

In the singles match up Elena Kordolaimi defeated Anna Kate Anderson, Rocio Martin defeated Yana Erkaava, Angela Lorenzo defeated Holly Verner, and Mina Markovic secured the victory when she defeated Vaszilisza Bulgakova.

With the win in the books the remaining two courts were halted and UH was up on both of them.

Houston now advances to Saturday’s championship match. They will face No. 71 Tulsa at Case Tennis Center, where the Golden Hurricanes hold home court advantage.

sports@thedailycougar.com

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“Cougars’ comeback moves team to championships” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar