The South Dakota State women's tennis team dropped its league opener 6-1 at the cluster versus Fort Wayne.
Fresh off of its spring trip to Florida, the Jackrabbits faced the Mastodons as part of a three-meet, Summit League cluster in Kansas City, Mo.
IPFW swept doubles for the team point with identical 8-2 scores at the top and bottom spots. The Mastodons also won at No. 2 doubles by one break of serve.
In singles, all matches were decided in straight sets and IPFW won five of the six matches.
Tacy Haws-Lay was SDSU's lone winner, a 6-4, 6-4 victory versus Marcy Huck at No. 5. The match was the fourth to finish.
Two matches needed bonus games in one set to determine the outcome, but both went the way of the Mastodons.
"We made a conscious decision today that we were going to give IPFW all the respect in the world," head coach Michael Engdahl said. "They are a great program and one of the favorites to win the league, but we have the talent to compete with them. The major difference is they had belief and were mentally stronger. We need to wake up tomorrow morning and believe we belong and can compete with anyone. It is not easy to do, but that will be the difference as we move forward in Summit League play."
The Jacks drop to 8-8 on the season and 0-1 in The Summit League. SDSU has a short turnaround for its second and third meets of the week. The Jacks play two meets on Tuesday: host Kansas City at 9 a.m. and Western Illinois at 2 p.m.
