The Massachusetts tennis team dove head first into its spring head-to-head schedule by taking on formidable Northeast power in Boston College on Saturday, before hosting Bryant on Sunday. The Minutewomen earned a weekend split with one win and one loss.
Saturday was certainly not the opening day UMass had hoped for. Facing off against Atlantic Coast Conference and top 50 opponent BC, UMass could only win one of the seven matches, ultimately being defeated 6-1.
“We all came away a little disappointed after Saturday,” coach Juancarlos Nunez said after his first spring head-to-head matchup as UMass coach. “But we came away still hungry. We knew what we needed to work on and I felt like we did that on Sunday.”
As Nunez indicated, Sunday was a much better day for the Minutewomen as they turned around Saturday’s match record of 1-6 to a perfect 7-0 tally, downing Bryant at the Bay Road Tennis Club in Amherst.
While a few players breezed to easy wins, others found themselves in battles. Senior Laura Moreno fell behind a set in both her singles and doubles matches, only for her to pull out a comeback victory in each.
“It really shows a lot about her character that she was able to chase the adversity and continue to fight and eventually pull out a win,” Nunez said.
Moreno defeated Stefanie Arroyo at the number four singles position and, along with her usual doubles partner Ana Yrazusta, bested the Bulldogs’ top team of Ashanti Campfield and Linnea Sjoberg.
Freshman Anna Napadiy had a big weekend for UMass, securing a record of three wins and one loss in the matches she entered. In her first collegiate head-to-head match of the spring on Saturday, she was the lone victor for UMass, defeating BC’s Maria Ross at number five singles, sweeping her in both sets 6-3.
Other Minutewomen found themselves as tough luck losers on Saturday, including Ruth Crawford who dropped an intense three-set battle with Kylie Wilcox. Both the number one- and number two-seeded doubles competitions required a tie-breaking point, with BC coming up victorious both times, 7-6.
Now standing with a record of one win and one loss, UMass heads to Providence, Rhode Island to take on Brown. The two teams have already seen each other multiple times this season, as the two competed at the Brown Invitational in September and at the Bulldog Invitational in October.
“Seeing them already will definitely help,” Nunez said. “We have a lot of information on them and our players know their players. But they could say the same about us. It will be an interesting chess match.”
They split the doubles competitions at the Brown Invitational with each team winning two, but the Bears took six of the eight singles competitions. Brown also took the majority of the matches against UMass at the Bulldog Invitational.
After competing against Brown, the tennis team will return to Amherst to take on St. Johns this coming Sunday.
Tim Sorota can be reached at [email protected], and followed on Twitter @timsorota.
