No. 20 MSU Faces No. 23 Tennessee In SEC Championship Thursday

Thursday, April 20

Nashville, Tenn.

9:00 AM

Mississippi State

Tennessee

MSU opens the SEC Championship against Tennessee.

No. 20 MSU Faces No. 23 Tennessee In SEC Championship Thursday

April 19, 2017 | Women's Tennis

Live Stats 2017 SEC Championship Bracket

STARKVILLE, Miss. – After placing players in the top 10 in both singles and doubles this week, the 20th-ranked and sixth-seeded Mississippi State women's tennis team (14-7) faces the 23rd-ranked and 11th-seeded Tennessee Volunteers (18-10) in the second round of the SEC Championship Thursday morning. The match is slated for a 9 a.m. CT start at Vanderbilt's Currey Tennis Center.

Live stats will be available for the match through www.vucommodores.com.

The Bulldogs are looking to advance to the quarterfinals of the SEC Championship for the third-straight year. MSU closed out the 2017 regular season slate with a thrilling 4-3 victory at No. 27 Ole Miss in Oxford this past Saturday.

Tennessee enters Thursday's match after blanking 35th-ranked and 14th-seeded Alabama 4-0 in Wednesday's first round of SEC Championship action.

State's 10th-ranked All-American Jasmine Lee won both of her matches against ranked opponents in the triumph over the Rebels. Lee how has a combined 120 wins between singles and doubles and stands fourth in the Mississippi State record books in total victories.

True freshmen Bulldogs Sara Lizariturry and Lisa Marie Rioux also contributed greatly in Saturday's victory with wins at their respective positions. Lizariturry provided the turning point of the match with her win at the No. 6 position, rallying to win the last four games of her second set. At the No. 2 position, Rioux defeated her second ranked opponent in a tough three-set battle to provide the match-clinching victory for State in dramatic fashion.

The MSU lineup is rounded out with junior Madison Harrison, sophomore Anastasia Rentouli and junior Khrystyna Vozniak.

State's fifth-ranked pair of Lee and Rioux defeated their ninth ranked opponent of the year Saturday and are one of four SEC doubles tandems in the top 5 of the ITA doubles rankings this week. Jennifer Brown and Khrystyna Vozniak, and Madison Harrison and Sara Lizariturry complete State's doubles lineup. The latter duo provided a big tiebreak win Saturday to clinch doubles for MSU.

MSU looks to down the Vols for the third consecutive time and the fourth time in the teams' last five meetings. The Bulldogs won 4-0 in Knoxville in this year's regular season matchup on March 24.

In singles, UT is led by 42nd-ranked Brittany Lindl at the No. 1 position. On the doubles side, the Volunteers boast the nation's 76th-ranked duo of Lindl and Eve Repic.

Up Next
If State advances to the quarterfinals, it will face top-ranked and third-seeded Florida there on Friday at 9 a.m. CT.

Live Stats
Live statistics are available for Thursday's contest through www.vucommodores.com.

Additional Notes

This is the 43rd all-time meeting between the Bulldogs and Volunteers
Tennessee leads the series 36-6, but MSU has claimed three of the last four meetings
State won the 2017 regular season matchup by a 4-0 mark in Knoxville; it was the first victory in Knoxville for MSU since 1987
Senior Jasmine Lee jumped to No. 10 in this week's ITA singles rankings
The duo of Lee and Lisa Marie Rioux came in at No.5 in the ITA doubles rankings
MSU is the only school in the nation to have top 10 players in the ITA singles and doubles rankings this week for both men's and women's tennis

Social Media
For more information on the Mississippi State women's tennis program, follow "HailStateWT" on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.