LARAMIE -- A winning weekend road trip ended on a sour note for the BYU women’s tennis team. The Cougars fell 4-3 to Wyoming Saturday to drop to 3-3 in conference play.

In doubles, the matches on courts one and two went quickly. No. 28 McCall Jones and Megan Price breezed by their opponents 8-3. The Cowgirls won at the No. 2 position by the same score and secured an 8-6 victory on court three to capture the doubles point.

Singles play began with Jones and Elle Carney earning identical 6-1, 6-3 wins at the Nos. 1 and 4 spots, respectively, to put BYU up 2-1. UW next tallied its first victory, a straight-set win on court two. Chie Hayasaka defeated her Cowgirl challenger 7-5, 6-1 to notch the third point for the Cougars.

With two matches remaining, BYU needed only one more point to lock up its third straight conference win. Price and Liza Ezhova both lost their first sets but came back to win the second in a tiebreak. Both players fell in the deciding third set to give Wyoming the victory at 4-3.

The Cougars will continue play against Mountain West Conference teams next week when they face New Mexico and TCU in Albuquerque, N.M.

Results
BYU-3
Wyoming-4
Doubles
1. #28 Jones/Price (BYU) def. van Ginkel/Synkova (UW), 8-3
2. Berger/Kovas (UW) def. Doerr/Hayasaka (BYU), 8-3
3. Navarro/Summerfield (UW) def. Carney/Ezhova (BYU), 8-6
 
Singles
1. #52 M. Jones (BYU) def. S. Summerfield (UW), 6-1, 6-3
2. A. Kovacs (UW) def. Doerr (BYU), 6-4, 7-6
3. C. Hayasaka (BYU) def. S. Synkova (UW), 7-5, 6-1
4. E. Carney (BYU) def. R.Berger (UW), 6-1, 6-3
5. K. van Ginkel (UW) def. M. Price (BYU), 6-2, 6-7 (7-4), 6-1
6. S. Nemcova (UW) def. L. Ezhova (BYU), 6-1, 6-7 (8-6), 6-1

PROVO -- After splitting matches last week against San Diego State and UNLV, the BYU women’s tennis team will travel to three cities in as many days to play three conference opponents. The Cougars face Air Force Thursday, Colorado State Friday and Wyoming Saturday.

“We had two good matches against San Diego State and UNLV,” BYU coach Joey Johnson said. “We’re working on moving forward and continuing to have solid play.”

Last season, BYU swept all three teams in Provo. The Cougars are currently 1-2 in Mountain West Conference play after overcoming SDSU 5-2 and losing to UNLV 4-3. AFA, CSU and UW all have 1-1 records against MWC opponents after beating New Mexico and falling to TCU over the weekend.

The Falcons are first on the agenda for BYU and have been enjoying a successful year thus far. Air Force (14-6, 1-1) is well on its way to the first winning season since the 2002-2003 campaign, when it finished play at 15-13. AFA blanked New Mexico last week, its first defeat of the Lobos and its first sweep of a conference challenger in school history.

Friday the Cougars will make the short trip to Fort Collins, Colo. to play Colorado State. The Rams are 6-8 overall and lost 7-0 to TCU in their most recent outing. During the fall season, players from BYU and CSU faced each other at both the BYU Invitational and the ITA Mountain Region Championship.

In the last match of the weekend, the Cougars will take on Wyoming. The Cowgirls (9-5, 1-1) barely fell to TCU, 4-3. UW also rewrote the history books last week by defeating New Mexico for the first time ever.

“This is a slightly longer road trip than we’ve had with more travel, but we’ve made our schedule as efficient as possible,” Johnson said. “We’ve got our routine down, and the energy level of the players should be high.”

BYU will begin the week at the Air Force Academy’s tennis courts at 2 p.m. Thursday. Friday’s match against Colorado State starts at 1 p.m. at Miramont Lifestyle Fitness South. The Cougars wrap up the weekend at the UW Tennis Courts Saturday at 10 a.m.