FRESNO, Calif. – Dominican women's tennis was unable to hold an early lead dropping a 4-3 decision Saturday afternoon to Fresno Pacific at Haak Tennis Center.

The Penguins (7-7) opened the match by claiming a victory in No. 2 doubles as Maria Gavrilov and Lorenza Foster-Simbulan topped the Sunbirds' (5-4) Halle Faherty and Jessica McLean 6-0.  Fresno Pacific's pair of Yume Ueoku and Fabiana Gonzalez answered moments later with a 6-0 win on court one to even the segment. Ana Rios and Deepalakshmi Vanaraja secured the team point with a 6-3 win for Dominican to give it some momentum heading to the singles. 

Foster-Simbulan doubled the Dominican advantage as she won the first set 6-2 and was ahead 1-0 vin the second when her opponent retired early. Fresno Pacific answered with straight-set wins on courts one and two to level the match at 2-2. The final four points all came in three-set matches. Kaylee Lopez topped Margarita Munoz 6-4 in the opening set of No. 4 singles, but Munoz responed with narrow 6-3, 6-4 victories in the next two sets to put the Sunbirds in front as a team. Dominican leveled the match as Rios topped McLean 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) with a dominating performance in the tiebreaker on court five. Unfortunately, Halle Faherty then clinched the match for Fresno Pacific with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory at No. 3 singles to split the season series between the schools.

Dominican will return to Fresno on Friday to take on Cal State LA in a neutral site match at 1 p.m. PDT at Haak Tennis Center.