Bulls fall to Bears in outdoor matchup

Warm weather in Providence allowed the women's tennis team to play outdoors, but despite the sun shining, the Bulls looked cold on Sunday.
Buffalo (4-4) fell to nationally ranked Brown (11-3) by a score of 5-2 to finish non-conference play.
Despite a victory in the first match by senior Denise Harijanto and junior Aleksandra Petrova, Brown claimed the doubles point.
Harijanto and Petrova, who are ranked 10th in the Northeast Region, defeated the Bear's team of junior Bianca Aboubakare and sophomore Cassandra Herzberg, ranked third in the region and 71st in the nation, by a score of 8-5.
Buffalo failed to win either of the other doubles matches as the freshmen pair of Tamara Markovic and Kira Golenko fell to Brown's team of freshmen Misia Krasowski and sophomore Julie Flanzer, 8-4.
The Bears' No. 3 team of senior Emily Ellis and junior Marisa Schonfeld clinched the point with an 8-5 victory over junior Diana Popescu and senior Diana Toia.
Buffalo picked up a pair of singles victories as Harijanto and Petrova continued their great play.
Harijanto, the No. 1 starter for Buffalo, defeated Herzberg in straight sets, 6-1, 6-4. Herzberg was ranked seventh in the region in singles prior to the match. Petrova followed suit in the third singles, defeating Krasowski 7-6 (2), 6-3, earning the Bulls' second point of the day.
Head coach Kathy Twist was delighted by the performances of Harijanto and Petrova.
"The highlights of the match were definitely Denise [Harijanto] and Alex [Petrova]," Twist said. "They showed great poise and each beat opponents that were ranked higher than them in the Northeast."
Unfortunately, Harijanto's and Petrova's play did not carry over to the rest of the team, as Buffalo dropped each of the other four singles matches in straight sets.
Popescu dropped a heart-breaking first set to Aboubakare in a tiebreak, 7-6 (9), before losing the second set 6-1. Markovic also played valiantly in the No. 6 match, but couldn't force a third set, falling by a score of 6-2, 7-5.
Buffalo ended non-conference play with a 4-4 record, but will use its experience to prep them for Mid-American Conference play. Due to a tough non-conference schedule, Twist feels confident that the Bulls will be ready to begin conference play this week.
"We have gotten a lot of good competition," Twist said. "We're going to go back and work harder. We are always stronger at the end of the season because our schedule is structured around the conference tournament. We know our game against Akron will be a battle, but we now have experience playing against great teams."
The Bulls will travel to Akron (11-0) on Saturday for a 1 p.m. matchup on Saturday. The Zips had their first winning season since 1996 last year and were ranked No. 1 in the MAC in the preseason polls

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