The Stony Brook Seawolves continued their strong start to the season, heading to Army to take on the top female tennis players in the country. The tennis team returned Long Island with three titles from the weekend of Friday, Sept. 27. The Army Invitational was the opposite of the intimidating setting it is for many who enter West Point.
Following a strong opening performance to the season at the Stony Brook Invitational a couple of weekends ago, Adey Osabouhien took the B Singles crown at the home of the Army Black Knights. Fighting past Emma Alderman of UConn in a tight straight setter, Osabouhien captured the title.
Continuing the trend of winning for Stony Brook, freshman Nadia Smergut battled through two three-set matches against host Army and Quinnipiac University to take the C Flight. In the final against Quinnipiac, Smergut showed great resolve in fighting back from a set down to take the Super Tie-Break in dominating fashion, 10-3.
The most dominant performance of the weekend came at the hands of senior Lisa Setyon in the D Flight singles bracket. Doing something that not even the great Rafael Nadal did on his way to winning the US Open, the senior Seawolf did not drop a set on her way to victory, beating each of her opponents in straight sets.
Closing out the weekend upstate, a Stony Brook doubles tandem nearly made Long island even richer in trophies, coming close to taking a fourth for the team. Sophomore Becky Shtilkind and junior Cassandra Dix hung tough before falling in the B Flight doubles bracket.
The women were not the only Seawolves tennis players in action this past weekend, as the men’s team headed south to UPenn to battle tough squad including St. John’s and the home Penn tennis team. After winning their first couple of matches in strong, convincing fashion, the team ran into trouble in the semifinals. Playing dual matches, where three doubles matches precede six singles contests, the individual success of the Stony Brook Invitational was not nearly as important as the whole team coming together for the win. Needing a combination of five total singles and doubles wins, one player’s success did not ensure the team’s winning. This came to the forefront on the final day of play, Sunday, with Stony Brook defeating Buffalo by a score of 5-4, taking all the doubles matches and two singles matches.
Heading into the future, the Seawolves will be getting ready for arguably the biggest tournament of the fall season, with the men heading to Connecticut and the women to Massachusetts for ITA Regionals in the third week of October.
