The Iowa State tennis team (9-2, 0-0 Big 12) lost to No. 45 Minnesota Gophers (9-2, 1-0 Big 10) on Sunday afternoon at the Baseline Tennis Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Cyclones winning strategy is based off of momentum which they gained in the double pairing at the beginning of the match. Strikingly it wasn’t so Sunday afternoon.

Samantha Budai and Liza Buss were the only pair to win their doubles match. They took a 6-3 win against Minnesota’s Paula Rincon-Otero and AnneMarie Emmie. The dynamic Cyclone duo of Alejandra Galvis and Annabella Bonadonna fell to Gopher’s Caroline Ryba and Julia Courter 6-4.

The Gophers would then clinch the doubles point with a 6-1 win by Mehivish Safdar and Caitlyn Merzacher over Regina Espindola and Anna Kuuttila.

Going it to singles the matches, senior Alejandra Galvis would get her team on the board with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Jessika Mozia. Galvis yet again improved her personal record to 18-4 this season.

But the Gophers would respond with three back to back wins by Rincon-Otero over Kuuttila 6-1, 6-4. Ryba defeated Budai 6-2, 6-3, and finally Camila Vargas-Gomez took a 6-1, 6-2, win over Bonadonna. It was a tough loss for the Cyclones. Beating this nationally ranked team could have lead to them entering the national ranking.

The season is still long and the Cyclones are yet to play a conference match. They will be back on the road on March 10 as they head to Jonesboro, Ark.,to face against Arkansas State.