SURPRISE, Calif. – Dominican women's tennis battled closely with No. 3-seed Hawai'i Pacific but was unable to pull the late comeback out of its hat in a 4-1 loss to open the PacWest Tennis Championships at Surprise Tennis and Racquet Club.

The Sharks (15-4) were tested in the doubles as the Penguins (10-9) kept every match within two games. Kaia Sperry and Kayleigh Castillo outlasted their DUC competitors 6-4 in No. 3 doubles and Evi Roobol and Annika Harkovirta finished two minutes later with a 6-4 victory of their own to get the doubles point for HPU. 

The close play continued into singles play as matches went back and forth in the first set. Castillo pulled away for a 6-2, 6-2 victory in No. 3 singles to hand another point to the Sharks, but Sofia Acuña shrugged off an early 2-0 deficit to win six games straight and carried that momentum into the second set for a 6-2, 6-1 victory to pull Dominican back within one. Roobol went up 4-0 early on Maria Gavrilov, but Gavrilov closed the gap to 5-4 late. Roobol held serve to capture the final game and went on to win the second set 6-0 to put Hawai'i Pacific up 3-1.

The final three singles matches were tight throughout. The Sharks' Rosa Viller Moller took an early 3-0 lead at No. 5 singles, but the Penguins' Ana Rios battled back and tied the match with three straight victories of her own. Viller Moller continued to keep a slight advantage and held on for a 6-4 victory. Rios got off to a strong start in the second set winning the first two games, but Viller Moller battled back to tie it 3-3. After trading the next four games, Viller Moller got a crucial break to clinch a 7-5 victory and clinch for her team. 

While the final two matches went unfinished Lorenza Foster-Simbulan held off a late comeback to go up a set in No. 6 singles with a 7-5 victory. She mounted a strong comeback of her own in the second set winning three straight games to close back to a 4-3 deficit when the match was abandoned. Kaylee Lopez and Harkovirta went back and forth in No. 4 singles as Harkovirta eeked out a 7-6 (2) victory in the first set, but Lopez was gaining strong momentum in the second set leading 5-2 when the match was clinched.

Dominican will continue its postseason in the consolation bracket as it takes on Biola at 1 p.m. PDT Thursday at Surprise Tennis and Racquet Club.