Estrada, Burrall finish 8th in national event

PERKINSTON — Mississippi Gulf Coast's Paulina Estrada and Katie Burrall put up strong fights in the ITA Oracle Cup last week in Surprise, Ariz.

They finished eighth in the event, losing in straight sets in the first round to State College of Florida's Maria Medina and Iulia Sergheeva, who went on to win the event.

"I thought it was a very successful trip," Lady Bulldogs coach Gary Bourgeois said. "We went toe-to-toe with the best teams in the nation. We lost two third-set tiebreakers, which tested our experience in dealing with big matches this early in the season. A couple weeks down the road, we maybe could have played better and won those matches."

It's the fourth straight year Gulf Coast has been represented at the premiere fall junior college event in the country. The tournament was previously known as the National Small College Championship.

Estrada and Burrell played Joelle Hülse and Ana Hinojosa of Canada Community College in Redmond City, Calif., and won the first set 6-3. They were up 4-2 in the second set before the momentum changed, and they wound up losing in a tiebreaker third set.

A similar fate awaited in the final match, playing Glendale's Tsukimi Ono and Kanako Kihara. Estrada and Burrell won the first set 7-5 and led in the second before falling again.

"That's just a matter of concentration and being in that situation a number of times," Bourgeois said. "Then you understand what's happening."

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