STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – The Lady Baron's tennis team swept Pitt.–Bradford 9 to 0 in dominant fashion, after moving to an earlier time to avoid getting rained out.

The schedule change and the weather threw a number of curves at the Lady Baron squad including strong winds, an early start to the match, and rain the previous night. In fact, the entire team spent the pre-game on their hands and knees with, towels drying-off the rain soaked court 

“They had to miss some warm up time to do that. So they went from cleaning water off the court to being able to focus on play,” head coach Jenna Lynch said. “So I was happy with how they came out after that.”

Despite the distractions the Lady Barons did get off to a hot start, winning all three doubles matches with relative ease, including the undefeated doubles-team of Kristina Godnick and Alanna Murray.

The team followed up their solid doubles performances by winning all six singles matches. Lynch said that the #1-seed singles player, Leann Roggensack, played her best match of the year.

“Leann closed out every point she needed to close out. She just played a better strategy,” Lynch said about Roggensack, who was two games away from winning with a clean sheet.  “Today she played at her potential.”

Playing to potential by staying mentally tough is something Lynch has been stressing to her team this season and the lessons have been paying off.  The team struggled last year to finish close matches. This year it's a different story 

“This year we haven't lost a tie-breaker or a third set,” Lynch said. She added that the reason for the improvement is her players learning to keep their emotions in check.

“A lot of the girls are mental players. Whatever is going on in their head really affects how they play,” Lynch said. “We've worked a lot on being able to manage our thought process for each point and being able to look at each point individually.”

The Lady Baron's next match will be at Penn St. – Altoona on Sunday, September 23 at 1 pm.