Contact: Alex Mielcarz, Athletics Communication Graduate Assistant, ajmielcarz@noctrl.edu
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (Feb. 27, 2026) – The North Central women's tennis program dominantly made its spring debut, flying high to a 6-1 victory over Judson University Friday night at the Naperville Tennis Club. The Cardinals utilized two third-set tiebreakers to stay spotless on the season.
North Central (11-0) set the tone early in doubles. Abigail Penados and Kensington Payne rekindled their dominant doubles pairing in the opening match, cruising to a 6-3 win. The pair improved to 11-2 with one another on the season, and 10-1 in duals.
The doubles point was clinched by Kate Herlihy and Liveta Ezerskis. The duo beat their opponent 6-4.
The Cardinals went 5-1 in singles, helped by two tiebreaker victories. Penados took her match in the number one spot in straight sets: 6-0, 6-3.
Payne was the first Cardinal to require a third set. She fell 6-4 in the opening set, but bounced back in extra games in the second set, 7-5, to force a tiebreaking third set. Payne dropped the race to ten, 10-6. This was Judson's lone point in the match.
Ezerskis found herself in a tiebreaker as well after dropping the first set of her singles contest 6-3. She came back to dominate the rest of the matchup, winning the second set 6-2 and the tiebreaker 10-3. Herlihy also won her match in three sets, doing so 2-6, 6-1, 1-0, with a 10-8 win in the third-set tiebreaker.
Ezerskis clinched the match, but the Cardinals weren't done soaring past Judson (2-10). Meghan McSweeny didn't drop a single game in her contest, flying to a 6-0, 6-0 sweep. Anais Gerard got the credit for the win in the sixth singles match, winning by default after Judson did not fill the spot.
The Cardinals will now prep for their spring break trip, taking on Carnegie Mellon in Florida next Friday to kick off the trip.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed the final score as 7-0. The score and all match results are correct. Last updated Feb. 27, 2026, at 11:50 p.m.
