Despite a solid effort, the women’s tennis team could not quite catch Nazareth at this weekend’s RPI Invitational, ending up in second place in the five-team event.
The Engineers won three of the nine flights in the tournament, while the Golden Flyers amassed five victories. SUNY-New Paltz won the remaining bracket; Russell Sage and Union were shut out.
Each team fielded one player in each singles bracket, and one pair in each doubles bracket. The competitors in each bracket then played each other in a round-robin format, with the winner of the most matches scoring for their team. To fit it all in a weekend, each match consisted of only one set, played to eight games instead of the usual six.
The top performer for RPI was Kristen Powers, who did not lose a single match during the tournament. She swept the field at third singles and also went 4-0 with junior Victoria Gardner at second doubles. Also scoring for the Engineers was senior Michelle Casey, who won four matches and lost none in the second singles slot.
At sixth singles, freshman Raimi Ishikawa nearly picked up a win for the Engineers—her only loss was a tight 9-8 match to Amy Larson of New Paltz.
The Engineers had a shot at tying Nazareth going into the last bracket, third doubles. Jessica DePalma and Florine Cannelle competed for RPI and won three of their four matches. However, they fell to Nazareth’s Carly Slaughter and Beth Chelus, sealing the Golden Flyers’ victory.
DePalma and Cannelle also came close in their singles brackets. DePalma lost her match to Nazareth’s Andrea Gaddis 9-8; winning the match would have tied DePalma with Gaddis at three matches apiece. Cannelle, at fifth singles, won three of her four matches, again losing only to the Nazareth player.
Commenting on the tournament, DePalma said, "[Coach] Carol thought we did okay, but I thought we could have done a lot better."
She noted that the team has a lot of talent, and should perform well this year. "We’re looking forward to this season, and doing better than we did last year in the state tournament," she said.
The Engineers will be back in action today, hosting the Red Dragons of SUNY-Oneonta at 4 pm.