JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (March 24, 2009) - As the saying goes all good things must come to an end unfortunately, for the ETSU women's tennis team its four match winning streak did just Tuesday afternoon as the Lady Bucs fell to regional rival Winthrop, 5-2 at the Buddy Hartsell Tennis Center in Johnson City, Tenn. With its first home loss of the season ETSU falls to 7-5 overall, while the Eagles improve to an 8-7 mark.

After Winthrop took two out of the three doubles matches the Eagles stayed hot taking four of the next six singles contests.

After senior Vita Moskalivoa (Minsk, Belarus) fell to Lisa Wilkinson in No. 5 singles and freshman Karina Kedzo (Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela) dropped her match to Sandra Herrera the Lady Bucs looked to get back in the match as junior Yevgeniya Stupak (Kyiv, Ukraine) battled Elizaveta Zaytseva in No. 1 singles play. After Stupak took an early lead in set one, Zaytseva would continue to battle tying the set at 6-6. In the ensuing tiebreaker Stupak and the Winthrop sophomore would hit rally after rally, before Zaytseva would finally close out the comeback and first set 7-6.

In set two Zaytseva and Stupak continued to battle point after point, but unfortunately for ETSU the Eagles would take the set 6-4 giving Winthrop a 4-0 lead.

Despite being down the Lady Bucs wouldn't quit as freshman Paula Jaime (Madrid, Spain) and senior Tara Byrne (Johnson City) both picked up singles wins. Both ETSU players would find themselves down a set before showing their toughness and rallying to take the final two sets for wins in No. 3 and No. 5 singles.

With the victory Byrne now sits only seven wins away from breaking former ETSU great Masha Illina career wins mark of 103.

Rounding out the scores for ETSU was sophomore Tara Sheets (Gate City, Va.), who ended her five match winning streak after falling to Paula Pereira 6-1, 2-6, 6-2.  

The Lady Bucs will now look to get back on track as they return to action against Atlantic Sun Conference rival North Florida this Friday at the Buddy Hartsell Tennis Center on the ETSU campus. 

For more information on the ETSU women's tennis team please visit www.ETSUBucs.com.