After a pre-game ceremony in which seniors Natalie Dean, Katrin Fischer and Miglena Nenova were honored, it was all business for Buffalo's women's tennis team.
The Bulls (15-2, 7-1 Mid-American Conference) captured a 6-1 victory over Northern Illinois (4-11, 0-6 MAC) at the Ellicott Tennis Courts Friday afternoon. With the win, the Bulls secured the second seed in next weekend's MAC Championships in Toledo, Ohio. The Buffalo seniors went undefeated on the day in each of their singles and doubles matches.
"These seniors, they were a real backbone of the team," said Buffalo head coach Kathy Twist. "They're steady and you can count on them pulling it out. We're really going to miss them (next season)."
It was the underclassmen who got the Bulls off to a quick start, as the first doubles pairing of freshman Denise Harijanto and junior Andreea Novaceanu defeated the Huskies tandem of Megan Brooks and Brooke Forsberg, 8-1. With the win, the Harijanto-Novaceanu pairing improved their record to 7-1 overall on the year.
The third doubles team of Fischer and junior Tina Jacob locked up the doubles point, besting Dora Delgadillo and Jenny Edner by a score of 8-4. Fischer and Jacob's victory extended their winning streak to four matches and snapped the six game winning streak that Delgadillo and Edner brought into the match.
Buffalo's seniors shined again in second doubles, as Nenova and Dean came back from a 6-3 deficit against Lilian Asuaje and Nao Umermura to force a tiebreaker. The Bulls team came up on top to win 8-7 (7-2).
"I think they were a little tight and tentative today, but they were able work it out and talk to each other," Twist said. "(Nenova and Dean) set up the point for each other and then everything was fine afterwards."
Harijanto's singles match against Edner ended much sooner than expected. After losing the first set 4-5, the Bulls hopes of a shutout were spoiled when she was forced to retire in the second set after an injury. Twist, however, said that the injury is nothing of serious concern.
"She's fine. I thought it was a sprained ankle but it was a plantar fascia, the muscle under the foot, that was a little tight. She'll be fine for next week," Twist said.
In the other singles matches, Nenova easily dispatched Asuaje, 6-1, 6-3. Novaceanu swept Umemura 6-0, 6-0 and Dean defeated Forsberg by a score of 6-0, 6-3. Fischer improved her conference record to 6-0 as she defeated Brooks, 6-2, 6-0 in the sixth singles match.
"We did a lot of things right, obviously, when you have a score this one-sided but we will work more on doubles. There were a lot of opportunities I saw that we missed," Twist said. "And in singles we're just going to try to improve, get some consistency, more depth of shots. You saw a lot of shots that fell a little short here. You've got to hit it in this block here (towards the back of the court), so that you push them back so that they don't attack you."
The last match of the day to finish was the duel between Buffalo junior Smaranda Stan and Delgadillo. Delgadillo took the first set by a score of 6-1, but Stan battled back to win the second set, 6-0, taking the match into the tiebreaker. After a series of lengthy and hard-fought rallies, Stan was able to win the super-tiebreaker, 14-12, after a double fault by Delgadillo.
"You can't (give up)," Twist said of Stan's effort. "This MAC conference, even though Northern (Illinois) is on the bottom of the conference, they still have some really, really good players and you have to want to come out, and you have to want to play and dominate. But today Sma (Stan) was able to squeak out a really, really good match just because I think she had more tenacity."
The Bulls will next play in a second-round match of the MAC Championship scheduled for Friday at 2 p.m. in Toledo. Buffalo will be the tournament's No. 2 seed for the second consecutive year and will face the No. 7 seed in the contest.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
