MEQUON, Wis. -- North Park women's tennis suffered a pair of defeats in Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon. The Vikings fell to Luther, 6-3, before a close 5-4 loss to host Concordia (WI).

Against Luther, both doubles teams started out strong, taking early leads against their opponents.  Alexandra Ristfeldt and Katarina Carlberg never let up, and with fast-paced, aggressive net play they stayed ahead of Luther the entire match to win.  

In #2 doubles, Luther gained momentum and had better success finishing games despite strong competition from North Park.  

North Park came back strong in singles, winning the first set in most of the matches.  Carla Cazes and Carlberg had the most dominant wins.  

Things looked promising to take the team win, with Maddie Starr fighting back to take a 2nd set and force a 3rd set tiebreaker.  Ristfeldt, too, was in a 3rd set tiebreaker, having lost a close 2nd set to her opponent.  The two matches couldn't have been closer, with North Park losing by just two points in each of the tiebreakers.

In the late afternoon, the Vikings faced Concordia University Wisconsin.  Now, with a full roster returning from previous academic commitments, the Vikings won a pair of doubles matches. 

#1 doubles Ristfeldt/Carlberg faced problems early in the match and never found their rhythm against a strong CUW team.  #2 doubles Zethraeus/Cazes and #3 doubles Starr/Darrow, however, both earned impressive victories.   For #2 doubles, it was the strength of Zethraeus's strong baseline game, and Cazes's aggressive volley game that proved a lethal combination.  #3 doubles played a versatile game, using the whole court and running down every shot to win.

In singles, North Park took solid victories at #2 (Risttfeldt) and #4 (Cazes) positions, and forced a tiebreaker at #3 singles.  

Quote from HC Karl Soderstrom: "It was a great day of matches for our team.  To go against the #1 teams from two different conferences in the same day is no easy task, and our players rose to the challenge.  Each of them fought back when they were down a set and stayed true to their own game and strategies.   Of course losing those tiebreakers made the difference in the final score, but our team is playing at their strongest level yet this year which looks good going into the conference tournament next week."

North Park (11-5) has a pair of home matches - first, this Wednesday, April 17, against Lake Forest College before a Saturday tango with UW-Oshkosh.