EDWARDSVILLE, Ill.  -  The nationally-ranked SIUE tennis team treated the largest indoor home crowd in recent memory to yet another commanding Cougar victory, this time taking down the visiting Bradley Braves by a 4-2 margin.

"What an awesome win in front of one of the biggest crowds I've ever seen at a tennis match," said SIUE Head Coach Adam Albertsen following the win. "It was incredible having all those student-athletes and members of the community. Everybody coming out and supporting us, the team fed off it."

The No. 75 Cougars began in their usual fashion, securing the doubles point. The pair of Jill Lambrechts and Maria Thibault notched a convincing 6-1 win on the No. 1 court before Jordan Schifano and Vanessa Reinicke clinched the point with a 6-3 win in the No. 2 position.

"Getting the doubles point was huge," added Albertsen. "They [the players] felt the energy of this place right away and you could just feed off of everybody here. We're nine-of-nine on the year and that's something that we really pride ourselves on, and hopefully it sets the tone for the start of the match."

Singles play began and the Cougars knew they would be in for a battle for each and every point. After the Braves tied up the match at 1-1 with a victory on the No. 5 court, defending OVC singles player of the Week Jill Lambrechts claimed her eighth-consecutive singles win with a dominant 6-1, 6-2 win in the No. 2 spot. Jordan Schifano got back in the singles win column with a 6-4, 6-1 win on the No. 1 court to put SIUE within striking distance of its ninth win of the season. Fabiola Perez confidently clinched the match, securing a 6-4, 6-4 win in the No. 4 position to give the Cougars the 4-1 lead.

"Bradley is always a battle," said Perez. "But I feel like this year, we have such good team chemistry. We lift each other up and even if we're down in a match, we're still there for our teammates. I think that's what made the difference."

The action continued, as Vanessa Reinicke dropped the narrowest of tiebreakers on the No. 3 court. Reinicke dropped the first set by a 6-4 margin before coming back to earn a 6-2 win in the second set. The tiebreaker, originally set to go to 10 points, needed nearly double the time to decide, as the Bradley opponent escaped with a 16-14 tiebreaking set win. Nicole Gomez won her first set, 6-3, on the No. 6 court; however, that match would go unfinished.

"[The crowd] was electric," said Albertsen. "The team kept talking about it when they finished their matches with the yelling and the support, it was awesome. It really makes this place special and it led to a win today. And I truly believe that - they pushed us in a lot of our matches and it was just an awesome atmosphere."

SIUE, which improves to 9-0 on the season, will return to action on Saturday, March 5 to take on the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. First serve from Bowling Green, Kentucky, is set for 1 p.m. 

"We knew this was going to be a really tough test and I like how we raised our game up another level,"closed Albertsen. "We know next week against Western Kentucky, they're a really, really good team. So we're excited to go there and see another test just like this and get ourselves ready as we get closer to OVC play."