UTC women in SoCon semifinals

photo UTC's Kaylene Chadwell, foreground, and Alexa Flynn defeated Paola Garrido and Caitlin Kitchen of Georgia Southern 8-4 in a doubles match Thursday at the Champions Club.

SoCon women's quarterfinalUTC 4, GEORGIA SOUTHERN 0Doubles (1 team point): Alexa Flynn/Kaylene Chadwell def. Paolo Garrido/Caitlin Kitchen, 8-4; Kayla Jones/Katie Polk def. Stephanie Woods/Giulia Riepe, 8-2; Kelsey Coots/Claire Mulyadi (UTC) vs. Jordana Klein/Mary Phillips Smith, 7-4, DNF.Singles: Jones def. Garrido, 6-1, 6-2; Chadwell vs. Klein, 4-6, DNF; Flynn def. Daria Vasekina, 6-0, 6-0; Kelsey Coots def. Woods, 6-2, 6-1; Mulyadi vs Riepe, 6-3, 3-1, DNF; Polk vs. Smith, 6-1, 3-1, DNF.Records: UTC 18-4; Georgia Southern 10-11.SoCon men's quarterfinalELON 4, UTC 0Doubles (1 team point): Cameron Silverman/Jordan Kaufman (E) vs. Pavels Grigorjevs/Jorge Varon, 6-4, DNF; Brian Kowalski/Robert Lindgren def. Austin Boaz/Derrick Brown, 8-3; Stefan Fortmann/Juan Madrid def. John Peacey/Gino Delavalle, 8-1.Singles: Silverman def. Grigorjevs, 6-3, 6-1; Fortmann vs. Varon, 6-4, 2-1, DNF; Lindgren vs. Luke Saunders, 6-2, 3-1, DNF; Kowalski vs. Delavalle, 4-6, 6-1, DNF; Kaufman def. Peacey, 6-3, 6-3; Madrid def. Brown, 6-4, 6-1.Records: Elon 17-4; UTC 7-14.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women's tennis team got past the match it needed. Now the Mocs get one of the matches they wanted.

They earned a spot in the Southern Conference semifinals with a quick, workmanlike 4-0 victory over Georgia Southern on Thursday at the Champions Club. UTC (18-4), the No. 3 seed, will face second-seeded Samford today at 2 p.m. in a rematch of last week's 4-3 Bulldogs win in Birmingham.

Kayla Jones, Alexa Flynn and Kelsey Coots won Thursday for UTC in singles, after Flynn with Kaylene Chadwell and Jones with Katie Polk made sure of the doubles point.

"We felt confident going into the match today. We really want Samford, so we were trying to be on top of our game today," Jones said. "We're excited to have Samford here this time around. When we played them last time, their fans were loud, rowdy and tried to get in our heads. But we're on our courts now -- we're ready."

The Eagles (10-11) made some tweaks in their doubles lineup from the teams' first battle -- won 7-0 by UTC on March 8. Those little changes concerned Mocs coach Jeff Clark but didn't affect the match itself, as moments after Jones and Polk had their win, Flynn and Chadwell followed suit.

Clark said that his team felt "relaxed" during Thursday's action, which sets up today's big match that could lead to a championship showdown against either top-seeded Furman or Elon on Saturday.

"We were able to get on and off the court without expending more energy than we needed," Clark said. "We're going to need everything in our tank for Samford. We played more relaxed than you would expect for a first-round match. You'd expect the nerves to be heightened more, but I think our girls like playing at home."

The other women's scores Thursday also were 4-0, with Furman beating Wofford, Samford topping Appalachian State and Elon downing UNC Greensboro.

The ninth-seeded UTC men lost 4-0 to top-seeded Elon in the morning. UNCG beat Georgia Southern by the same score, Appalachian State beat Samford 4-2 and No. 2 seed Furman edged seventh-seeded Wofford 7-3.

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6311. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.

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