April 20, 2008

Box Score

HOUSTON - The No. 2 seed Marshall defeated the No. 3 Rice, 4-3, Saturday afternoon in semifinal action of the Conference USA Championships at the University of Houston John E. Hoff Courts. The Thundering Herd improved to 17-8 overall while the Owls ended its season 12-10.

The 50th-ranked Herd will challenge the No. 1 seed and 48th-ranked Tulsa University, Sunday at 10 a.m. CT for the C-USA Championship title. Tulsa defeated the Herd in the 2007 C-USA final championship, 4-0, in Tulsa, Okla.

Tulsa holds the all-time series lead over Marshall, 1-0.

Rice came out early with two doubles victory to go ahead of the Herd 1-0 leading into singles competition.

Jessica Keener and Thaddea Lock fell to Varsha Shiva Shankar and Emily Braid, 8-4, at the No. 3. Tiffany Lee and Rebecca Lin took an 8-3 decision over Jeanne Schwartz and Isabell Raich at the No. 2 slot.

The No. 31 nationally-ranked doubles pair of Kellie Schmitt and Karolina Soor did not finish against Julie Chao and Dominique Karas at the No. 1 position.

The Owls took a 2-0 lead after Karas defeated Schwartz, 6-3, 6-3, at No. 2.

Then,The Herd's Lock took a straight-set decision over Christine Dao, 6-4, 6-1, at the N. 5 to put the Herd deficit at one.

The 53rd-ranked Schmitt tied the match at two with another straight-set victory, 6-0, 6-2, over Chao at the No. 1 slot. Raich shortly followed with a hard-fought battle for her 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Lin at the No. 4 position.

With the match tied, three all, the Herd were looking at Keener and Soor to clench the victory. After a strong come back, Keener fell to Shankar, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (9-7), at the No. 6.

For the second day in a row, the Herd's victory rested on Soor's shoulders and she came through again with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory over Lee at the N. 3 position to send Marshall into the championship final for the second season in a row.

The Herd improved its all-time series lead over the Owls, 3-1.