Make it 29 Straight

They knew it was not going to be easy coming into a weekend where they would face two Mid-American Conference rivals on the road.

The UB women's tennis team has been less than stellar, to say the least, in the conference, losing the previous 27 consecutive MAC contests by a combined game score of 161-15.

Make it 29 straight and 175-18.

UB had a tough weekend, falling to both Northern Illinois and Western Michigan to slip down to only one game over .500, while remaining winless in conference play.

The Bulls (7-6, 0-4 MAC) started out the weekend against NIU (5-5, 1-1 MAC) on Friday, in Rockford, Ill. The day started out badly as UB was swept in the doubles competition by a combined score of 24-8 for all three matches.

Sweeping the doubles gave the Huskies the 1-0 edge heading into the six singles matches.

The Bulls and Huskies each won three matches in the singles category, but due to NIU winning the doubles point, they sneaked by Buffalo with a 4-3 win.

Kristen Ortman had another strong day for the Bulls, winning one of the singles matches in straight sets 6-0, 6-2 over Branka Savic. This brought Ortman's overall record to 14-6 and 8-0 at the No. 2 spot for the time being.

During the third and fourth singles, Northern Illinois took a 3-2 match lead. The Bulls fought back, bringing the score to a 3-3 tie, but in the final match UB lost as Dani Martinez of NIU defeated Onessa Williams in straight sets 6-3, 6-1.

The Bulls looked to come back from this difficult loss as they traveled to Kalamazoo, Mich. Saturday to face Western Michigan (10-7, 3-0 MAC).

Things only got worse for the Bulls as the Broncos hammered them 7-0.

Frederika Girsang and Reedhina Parekh crushed UB's number one team of Kristen Ortman and Miglena Nenova 8-1. The second and third teams didn't fare any better, losing by a combined score of 15-1.

Buffalo was unable to even win a set during all six of the singles matches. Nenova had her streak of 12 straight wins snapped as she fell to Girsang 6-4, 6-2.

Williams won seven games for the Bulls, more than anyone else for UB, but it was not enough as she fell to Maelynn Bernosky 6-4, 6-3.

Buffalo will look to get back in the win column as they host MAC leader Marshall on Friday at 1 p.m.