The No. 16 LSU women’s tennis suffered a frustrating start to its final home weekend of the regular season on Friday, then the Lady Tigers fell to No. 4 Georgia, 5-2.
Both teams came out firing in doubles play. While LSU fought hard to stay in the game as it was down 2-1 on all courts after three points, Georgia held all the momentum.
The Bulldogs dominated court 3 to a 6-2 victory and eventually took the doubles point with its 6-3 win on court 2, leaving the tightest battle between Georgia’s No. 23 sophomore duo of Ellen Perez and Mariana Gould against LSU’s junior Joana Vale Costa and sophomore Jessica Golovin unfinished.
“Our intensity wasn’t there at all,” said junior Abigail Owens. “It’s always a bad thing when the other team comes in and is louder than you are. That’s what happened today. Our energy was really low and our confidence in doubles reflected that.”
The Bulldogs’ momentum didn’t stop in singles, either.
After winning the first set on five of the six courts, Georgia’s No. 6 Perez set the tone early on court 1 as she defeated LSU’s No. 20 Vale Costa, 6-4 and 6-0.
The Lady Tigers’ seniors Skylar Kuykendall and Ella Taylor worked for a comeback on courts 4 and 6, but the Bulldogs secured the win with dominating performances on courts 2 and 3, where Golovin and sophomore Ryann Foster fell 6-3, 6-2 and 6-1, 6-3, respectively.
“We are legitimately a top-15 program,” said LSU co-head coach Julia Sell. “We’ve never been here before, but our players feel they are better than that and belong in the top-10 with teams like this. The challenge this year is overcoming that. Today was a day where we overplayed certain spots and got away from what we did well. That really hurt us.”
The frustration was obvious, but then, the Lady Tigers won its points.
Junior Abigail Owens, who won LSU’s only first set, 7-5, put the Lady Tigers on the board clinching the second, 6-2.
She was also the only Lady Tiger to bring a victory in the top-10 matchup against then-No. 6 Florida on March 31. 
“My confidence is just at an all time high,” Owens said. “I’ve been playing really solid and haven’t lost a match at line 5 in the SEC, so I go into every match believing I can win and everything else just follows.”
As Kuykendall won the second set and the following tiebreaker to give LSU its second point, Taylor lost the tiebreaker on court 6 to end the match.
The team will return to its home court for Senior Day at 11 a.m. on Sunday as the Lady Tigers take on Tennessee to in their final regular season home matchup.