The University at Buffalo women's tennis team left Vestal, N.Y. this past weekend with a collection of wins after competing in a four-team invitational at host school, Binghamton University.
The two-day tournament was a non-scoring event that was played in a blind dual format, in which the four teams faced off against each other, head-to-head.
"Every tournament we want to walk out with our best game, we want to play for every point," said UB head coach Kathy Twist. "Each one of these tournaments is really just preparation for the spring."
Off to a rough start Saturday morning, UB dropped six of ten matches to host-school Binghamton. The Bulls fought back, however, taking six of the nine afternoon matches against Colgate University.
Binghamton proved to be the toughest match for the Bulls, as the usually consistent Kristen Ortman fell in her singles match against Binghamton's Lya Kushnirovich. Against Colgate, however, the Bulls regained their consistency, scoring victories from Ortman, Katrin Fischer and Miglena Nenova.
Day two of the tournament proved much less stressful for Twist as Buffalo took seven of eight singles and all four doubles matches to nearly sweep the Great Danes of the University at Albany.
The only Bull to suffer a loss at the hands of Albany was Elizabeth Paoletti, who lost in a close 9-7 match to UA's Kerry Levis.
"I think they performed awesome. This week I wanted to see if the players were mentally tough so I switched the lineup a few times, made people play with different partners just to give them a little adversity, to see how they'd handle the challenge," Twist said.
UB Sophomore Fischer left the West Gym Courts with a perfect 3-0 record, the only Bull to return from the tournament undefeated.
On Saturday, Fischer played the number three singles position where she defeated Binghamton's Jelena Koprivica in a thrilling, highly competitive third set tiebreaker, 6-1, 5-7, (10-6).
Fisher also rolled to a straight-set win over Colgate's Alex Seaton, 7-5, 6-3 in her afternoon match. She then finished the weekend by stomping Albany's Aimee Kern, 7-5, 7-5.
Fischer also added a pair of doubles wins, one with teammate Tina Jacob and another with Onessa Williams. Fischer leads the Bulls with a singles record of 7-1 and doubles record of 6-2 on the season.
Freshman sensation Andreea Novaceanu, who hails from Bucharest, Romania, competed on Sunday after missing the first day of action due to flu-like symptoms. Battling the illness, Novaceanu racked up a singles and doubles victory over her Albany opponents.
Following the victories, Novaceanu raised her record to an impressive 12-0 on the year for the Bulls, half of which are singles wins.
Buffalo's number one doubles duo of Nenova and Ortman also gathered three wins, defeating their opponents from Binghamton and Colgate on Saturday with 8-6 decisions and their Albany opponents 8-0 on Sunday's match.
"Whatever we are going to be working on for the week we really take a look at to see if it becomes one of our strengths or weaknesses," said Twist.
The Bulls currently hold a 2-0 record on the season and return to action this Saturday at 2 p.m. when they host Robert Morris at the University Tennis Club.
