Northwestern State tallied three singles wins and fell just short as the women’s tennis team lost to No. 60 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 4-3 in the Lady Demon’s Southland Conference opener on Saturday afternoon at the Jack Fisher Tennis Complex.

The loss drops NSU to 5-4 overall and 0-1 in SLC action while the nationally ranked Islanders improve to a perfect 9-0 overall and 2-0 in Southland play.

“This was a very good match today,” said NSU tennis head coach Patric DuBois. “Both teams competed at a high level and fought hard. Corpus Christi is well coach and did a lot of good things today. We counteracted well but, in the end, fell just short.”

The Islanders went 2-1 in doubles competition to start the day off with the doubles point and a 1-0 lead.

Junior Polina Konop and freshman Natalya Krutova notched the lone doubles win for the Lady Demons, taking down AMCC’s Chelsea Horan and Sandra Burges 8-2 at the No. 2 position.

Krutova registered the first point of the day for NSU after defeating Maider Martin 6-1, 6-0 in the third position.

Tatiana Larina won 7-6 (1), 7-5 in the second spot against Burges and Konop battled it out with Doris Kuselj at the No. 1 position to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.

The match was tied at 3-3 after NSU’s Daniela Simonova and Olga Leyshyna fell in the fifth and sixth spots and the No. 4 match became the deciding factor.

Senior Andrea Nedorostova took the first set off of Stefania Nicolae 5-7 before dropping the second 6-4 to take it to a third set. Nedorostova fought hard but was unable to take the win, falling 6-3 in the final set.

The Lady Demons match against Sam Houston State on Sunday had been postponed due to inclemate weather and is now set for Friday, March 22.