Claudia Silvers
Contributing Writer
The women’s tennis team is off to a strong start in its fall tournament season after winning five of the seven brackets at the Mount St. Mary’s Invitational in Emmitsburg, Md. this past weekend.
Though fall tournaments are scored individually, the Bison won two doubles finals and claimed three singles titles at the end of the competition.
“I thought our doubles looked particularly strong for this early in the season. Sending three of our four doubles teams to the semifinals shows just how hard we work on the specifics of doubles,” head coach Rebecca Helt said.
Maria Cioffi ’16/Elena Vidrascu ’14 and Stephanie Pino ’16/Lydia Colvin ’15 won doubles crowns on the final day of the tournament. The Bison also appeared in the finals in four of the five singles flights. Cioffi made it to the final round of Flight A, ultimately losing to Megan Hahn from Loyola (Md.) 1-6, 6-2, 11-9. Flight C ended in an all-Bison final, with Melissa Parks ’17 claiming another close victory in a tiebreaker over Colvin. Jorie Fox ’17 won the singles title against Loyola (Md.) for Flight D, and Pino took victory over Coppin State for another Bison win in Flight E.
“It was a great chance to see all the freshmen in action and to observe how quickly they are picking up new strategies in their individual games,” Helt said.
Vidrascu, one of the two team captains, also noted the success of the first-year players.
“There were a few titles won, two of them being from our freshmen, which is a promising start to our season,” Vidrascu said.
Beginning today, the Bison will host the three-day Bucknell Invitational, the second home tournament of the fall.