CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Kenyon College women's tennis team, the No. 27-ranked team in the International Tennis Association's (ITA) national poll, hung tough against the No. 12-ranked Case Western Reserve University Spartans (7-0), but CWRU claimed the 6-3 victory on their home court.

The back-and-forth action began in double play when the Spartans and Owls traded blows. Kenyon started hot with an 8-2 victory in the No. 2 doubles spot, where Erika Pontillo and Allaire Berl cruised to victory over Radha Patel and Katalina Wang. 

However, the home team bounced back with a pair of 8-4 decisions that ended simultaneously about four minutes after the Owls' dual-opening win. CWRU came out on top in the No. 1 doubles match, where Kenyon's Eleni Dakos and Eleni Lazaridou fell against Lily McCloskey and Hannah Kassaie. At the same time, Nina Hoog and Anna Kan bested Natalie Connelly and Shadia Amado Aguad in the No. 3 bout.

The teams traded blows again when the first two singles matches ended simultaneously, and the sides settled for splitting straight-set decisions. In the No. 4 match, Dakos won 6-4, 6-2 against Wang, evening the team scores at 2-2. However, CWRU's Pallavia Coculdas swept Pontillo shortly thereafter in the No. 6 battle. The first set was tightly contested at 7-6 (7-4) before a 6-0 win clinched set two and put the Spartans back on top in the dual, 3-2.

The No. 5 singles match was eerily similar, and CWRU doubled their margin to 4-2 after Lalasa Nagireddy fell 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 against Kan. The win brought the Spartans to the brink of clinching the dual, and they did so in the next match. The No. 3 singles bout was a 6-4, 6-4 loss for Amado Aguad against Patel, clinching an overall victory for the home team at 5-2.

Despite the dual being decided, the top two singles matches had yet to be completed. At the time of the clinch, Lazaridou and Berl, the Owls' top two singles players, were locked in three-set battles.

Lazaridou's path to the third set was different from Berl's. The Owls' No. 1 fell 6-2 in set one against Kassaie before bouncing back with a 6-4 win in set two. Berl, however, opened the No. 2 matchup with a hard-fought 7-5 win before falling 7-6 (7-5) against McCloskey in the second set. McCloskey won the decisive third set 1-0 (10-8), but Lazaridou went back and forth in the top spot before closing the dual with a 6-4 win. The No. 1 singles victory added a third point to Kenyon's team total, but the Spartans finished with the 6-3 victory.

The Owls (2-1) will look to bounce back on Wednesday, Mar. 1, when Kenyon hosts its first home dual of the spring slate. Gambier, Ohio, and the Jasper Tennis Center will host Oberlin College (3-2) at 4:30 p.m. as the Owls will take their first North Coast Athletic Conference test of the season.