ALMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. – The Carthage College Lady Reds tennis team opened their 2016 spring break in Florida Sunday, March 20th with two wins in the Sunshine State, defeating St. Catherine University, 5-4, and Hamline University 8-1.
 
The pair of wins propels the Lady Reds to 10-2 during the 2015-16 season as they prepare for the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Automatic Qualifier scheduled for late April.
 
After rain pushed back the start of the spring break competition, Carthage squeaked out a dramatic win over the Wildcats at the Lake Sylvan courts.
 
Carthage's number three doubles teams of Eliza Barter and Kristen Kalinka took their respective match to send Carthage into the singles competition just down one after SCU took the doubles one and two matches.
 
The Lady Reds then showed their determination as they were on the winning-end of three-of-five singles matches that went to super tiebreakers.  After dropping their first sets, Max Mella came back to win the number one singles [1-6, 7-5 (10-4)], Casey Frommer won the two-singles [4-6, 6-4, (10-7)] and Kirsten Peterson won the six singles [4-6, 7-6 (7-5), (10-6)]. 
 
Angelica Emmanouil won the lone singles match that didn't go to a tiebreaker with a straight-set [6-0, 6-2] win over Jessica Duda.
 
Carthage followed up the narrow win with a convincing one in the evening over Hamline as play shifted to Almonte Spings' Sanlando Park.  The Lady Reds opened with a quick 3-0 lead after the doubles competition in the evening.  Mella and Emmanouil topped Hamline's doubles-one team for an 8-6 win.  From there is wasn't close as Frommer and Taylor Bolyard  cruised to an 8-2 win and Kalinka and Barter finished their perfect doubles day, 8-0.
 
Carthage closed the day taking five-of-six singles matches with Mella, Frommer, Bolyard and Emmanouil winning in straight-sets, and Kirsten Peterson winning the number-five singles match, [6-4, 2-6, (10-8)], over Maggie Gibson.
 
After a day off Monday, the Lady Reds will return to the courts at Sanlando Park for matches with Luther College and the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta at 10:00 AM, EST and 4:00 PM, EST respectively.