The No. 24 Sun Devils (12-4, 3-2) were unable to come away with a victory Saturday against No. 3 Cal in Tempe.
The team dropped consecutive games, but managed to evade a sweep by notching a point in a 6-1 loss.
“I thought we played better today than we did yesterday,” head coach Sheila McInerney said. “We can build on that, particularly from our play in the singles matches.”
The team once again bravely battled with one of the most talented units in the country.
Cal escaped the doubles session of the game unscathed, winning two of the three matches to claim the singles point to earn an early 1-0 advantage.
While the official scoring of the match will suggest that Cal handily won, the No. 1 match that went unfinished was nearly won by ASU’s No. 1 pair of juniors Desirae Krawczyk and Stephanie Vlad. The two were leading Cal’s sophomore duo of Maegan Manasse and Denise Starr 7-6 prior to the match being called.
Manasse and Starr currently are ranked as the No. 5 doubles pair in the country. Krawczyk and Vlad form the No. 36 couple.
Cal’s singles lineup, composed of five players ranked within the top 100 in the country, proved to be too much for ASU.
The Golden Bears overmatched the Sun Devils en route to a near sweep, but for the second straight day junior Ebony Panoho won her match to notch the lone point for the team.
She defeated senior Cecilia Estlander, 6-3, 4-6, 11-9 in a tightly contested match that ended with a tiebreaker set.
The team will continue Pac-12 conference play next weekend when it hosts No. 1 UCLA on Friday, April 3 at 1:30 p.m., then No. 1 USC on Saturday, April 4 at 12 p.m.
Today’s scores:
Singles
1. Maegan Manasse (CAL) def. Desirae Krawczyk (ASU) — 6-2, 7-5
2. Klara Fabikova (CAL) def. Stephanie Vlad (ASU) — 6-1, 6-2
3. Denise Starr (CAL) def. Kassidy Jump (ASU) — 6-7, 6-4, 10-8
4. Zsofi Susanyi (CAL) def. Joanna Smith (ASU) — 6-3, 6-2
5. Karla Popovic (CAL) def. Leighann Sahagun (ASU) — 6-7, 6-0, (6)
6. Ebony Panoho (ASU) def. Cecilia Estlander (CAL) — 6-3, 4-6, 11-9
Doubles
1. Krawczyk/Vlad (ASU) vs. Manesse/Starr (CAL) — 7-6, DNF (abandoned)
2. Fabikova/Susanyi (CAL) def. Smith/Jump (ASU) — 8-4
3. Popovic/Chi (CAL) def. Panoho/Osborne (ASU) — 8-4
Reach the reporter at kajone31@asu.edu or follow @kaelenjones on Twitter.
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