App State women’s tennis suffered a heartbreaking loss to North Texas in the first round of the UTR Sports Women’s Tennis National Invitational Tennis Championship in Rome, Georgia.

The Eagles won the doubles point with North Texas’ sophomore Lilly Schultz and sophomore Lou Chalard defeating mountaineer sophomore Naledi Manyube and sophomore Taya Powell 6-4 on court one. 

Court two ended with an unfinished 3-5 match by North Texas’ sophomore Stanislava Shulzhenko and junior Stadfany Nformi vs. freshman Ruby Broadbent and junior Savannah Dada-Mascoll. 

On court three, freshman Alexi Cleveland and senior Olywn Ryan-Bovey lost their match 7-5 against North Texas’ junior Marina Adati and sophomore Carolina Laydner. 

During singles, Dada-Mascoll was able to earn the Mountaineers’ only point of the day with a strong 6-2 win over North Texas’ senior Gianna Pielet, but North Texas was able to seal the deal with victory matches from courts three, four, and five. 

The matches from Manyube in court two and Broadbent in court six were left unfinished once it was decided that North Texas had already clinched. 

App State’s women’s tennis had a great season overall finishing with a program-best 17 wins to go along with a 10-game winning streak and continuing a eight straight Sun Belt Conference victory. 

 Dada-Mascoll finished her junior season with a 19-2 in singles, winning her final 11 matchups. She and junior Isabela Romanichen posted a 13-5 record in doubles and reached No. 58 in the national doubles rankings. Dada-Mascoll, along with teammates Manyube and Powell, earned All-Sun Belt Conference honors. The team also managed to break into the top 75 of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings for the first time since 2020.