Retrievers Capture Weekly Tennis Awards - AmericaEast.com
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – As the conference championship draws near, America East tennis squads got a dose of familiar competition during action last week.
UMBC sweeps the weekly awards with Joe Adewumi (Phoeniz, Ariz./North Canyon) getting the Male Player of the Week nod and Isabel Aldunate (Bowie, Md./Home School) picking up Female Player of the Week honors. The two combined to go 10-0 over the weekend.
Adewumi went 4-0 for the weekend, including two wins against conference foe Stony Brook. The senior grabbed two wins at No. 2 singles and at No. 3 doubles against the Seawolves and Morgan State. Adewumi is on a four match win streak and is just four wins shy of reaching the century mark for his career.
Aldunate won all six of her matches with four of them coming against conference foes Albany and Stony Brook. She helped the Retrievers notch wins over Great Danes and Seawolves clinching the final point against Stony Brook with a 6-2, 6-2 win at No. 4 singles. Aldunate’s season record stands at 14-6 in singles action and 10-7 in doubles play and she has won 10 of her last 13 matches.
Albany dropped both of its matches last week falling by a 4-3 margin to Delaware State and then 7-0 to UMBC. The Great Danes’ Cheryl Kukkonen (Richmond Hill, Ontario/St. Theresa of Lisieux) was able to go 2-0 on the day against Delaware State with wins at No. 1 doubles and No. 3 singles. Albany now looks ahead to Senior Day on Thursday with a home contest against UMass.
Binghamton’s men’s tennis squad won both of its matches over the weekend by an identical 4-3 score. The Bearcats beat perennial MAC power Western Michigan and then knocked off SUNY rival Buffalo. The wins give Binghamton victories in four of its last six matches. Ruben Haggai (St. Denis, Reunion Island) went a combined 4-0, including the clinching victory at No. 6 singles against Western Michigan. Haggai and fresman partner Robin Lesage (Mulhouse, France) won twice at No. 3 doubles as the Bearcats won five of six doubles matches contested over the weekend. Freshman Ismael Dinia (Rabat, Morocco/Lycee Descartes) dropped just one game in his match at No. 5 against WMU and has a team-high 21 singles wins in 2011-2012. Binghamton will host UMBC in a rematch of the 2011 America East Championship on Saturday. The Binghamton women played four matches in Florida last week dropping the first two but then rebounding to close out the trip with two wins against Florida Atlantic and Florida Gulf Coast. Jillian Santos (Flushing, N.Y./Cardozo) picked up a 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 win against Florida Gulf Coast which gives her 85 career victories moving her into sole possession of fourth place all-time at Binghamton. She needs just one win to move into a tie for third place, three for second place and four to share the lead with 2011 graduate and former teammate Yulia Smirnova. Up next for the Bearcat women is a match against UMBC in Vestal on Saturday. Binghamton has won eight of the last nine against the Retrievers dating back to 2005.
Boston University’s women’s tennis squad suffered a 5-2 defeat at UMass last Thursday. The Minutewomen edged the Terriers in doubles action by winning a tiebreaker for the first point and then won four of the six singles matches. Vivien Laszloffy (Budapest, Hungary/Thomas Mann Gymnasium) shut out her opponent at the top singles spot, while Jessi Linero (Key Biscayne, Fla./Gulliver Prep) earned a three-set victory at No. 3 to lead Boston U. The Terriers will next visit Boston College today before traveling to Virginia to take on William and Mary and VCU over the weekend. The Boston U. men were idle this past week and will play at Hartford on Saturday, April 14.
The Hartford men picked up their first victory of the spring, defeating Merrimack at home, 5-2. The Hawks won with all their points coming in singles play. Aneil Bhalla (Ottawa, Ontario/Merivale), Josh Isaacson (Marietta, Ga./George Walton), Michael Kennelly (Irvington, N.Y./Irvington) and Bogdan Nedelcu (Rocky Hill, Conn./Rocky Hill) all notched singles victories to decide the match while the Hawks picked up their fifth point by default at No. 6. The Hawks fell just short of winning their second straight match as they fell to Sacred Heart on the road 4-3. Bhalla went 3-0 in singles action for the week while Isaacson and Kennelly each went 2-1. For the women, Abby Liu (Houston, Texas/Cypress Falls) continued her solid singles play, earning wins at the No. 1 spot against Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac. Liu is now 6-2 at the top spot this spring and 17-4 this year as a Hawk.
The UMBC women’s tennis team swept its three holiday weekend matches with wins over Stony Brook on Friday and both America East rival Albany and local foe Morgan State in a double-header on April 7. The Retrievers improved to 13-7 on the spring. Against the Great Danes, UMBC dropped only four games in doubles action and victories at the Nos. 2 and 3 slots secured the doubles point. Shalini Sahoo (New Delhi, India/TCU) clinched the match for UMBC when she collected a 6-2, 6-1 win at the No. 1 singles spot. She improved to 16-4 in singles action this season. Against Stony Brook, Carmen Jackson (Silver Spring, Md./Home School) won a critical match at No. 3 singles, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 and UMBC closed out the match by winning at Nos. 4 and 5 singles. Isabel Aldunate picked up the victory at No. 4 against the Seawolves en route to winning all six of her matches this weekend. The UMBC men won for the third time in four outings when they defeated Morgan State, 6-1, on April 7 but did fall to Stony Brook, 4-3 a day earlier. The Retrievers evened their spring record at 8-8 with the win against Morgan State. Joe Adewumi went 4-0 on the weekend as UMBC won at No. 2 singles and No. 3 doubles versus the Seawolves and the Bears. Both teams take on Binghamton in Vestal on April 14.
The Stony Brook men’s tennis team split a pair of matches last week, falling to Georgetown before defeating UMBC both by 4-3 scores. Freshman Nikita Fomin (Moscow, Russia) went 3-1 on the week, He posted a 2-0 record at No. 1 singles and combined with Francis Bertrand (Repentigny, Quebec) to go 1-1 at doubles. Robert Forai (Novi Sad, Serbia) won at No. 6 singles in three sets to give the Seawolves the 4-3 win. The women’s team went 1-2 on the week, falling to UMBC and Georgetown after defeating Towson 5-2. Both the men’s and women’s teams have four home matches this week. Prior to Saturday’s match, the Seawolves will honor their five seniors on Senior Day.