Lagvilava and Hallenbeck Grab Weekly Tennis Awards - AmericaEast.com
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – With the conference championship a mere three weeks away, America East tennis squads looked to build momentum in the first weekend of April competition. Stony Brook’s Nini Lagvilava (Tbilisi, Georgia) picks up Female Player of the Week honors while Boston University’s Alex Hallenbeck (Tampa, Fla./Tampa Prep) grabs the Male Player of the Week award.
Lagvilava went a combined 2-0 this week for the Seawolves picking wins in both singles and doubles action. The junior teamed with Polina Movchan (Kiev, Ukraine/Specialized School #125) to win 8-3 at No. 1 doubles and then won 7-5, 6-2 at No. 1 singles in Stony Brook’s 5-2 win over Fairfield.
Hallenbeck picked up the Terriers lone win against No. 58 St. John’s last week. The junior dropped only one game in a 6-1, 6-0 win at No. 6 singles for Boston U.
Albany split its matches last weekend with a win over Bryant (5-2) and a loss to Boston University (7-0). The Great Danes have lost five of six and look to improve against conference foe UMBC this weekend. Rocio Lopez Alberca (Madrid, Spain) took a six-match win streak into her match with the Terriers. Francince White (Utica, N.Y./Thomas R. Proctor) has stepped into the No. 6 singles slot and won two of her last three matches, including a win against Bryant. Albany heads to Dover, Del. on Friday to face Delaware State before venturing further south to Baltimore for the match against the Retrievers.
The Binghamton men played just one match during the week and dropped a 7-0 decision to No. 20 Harvard on the road. The Bearcats held match point to win the doubles point before the Crimson rallied to seize control. The hosts then rattled off six straight singles wins – five in straight sets. Winning at the top doubles spot were juniors Rubin Devos (Keerbergen, Belgium) and Bastian Bornkessel (Bochum, Germany). The pair upset the 44th-ranked doubles tandem from Harvard, MacMaster and Felton, 9-7. Devos and Bornkessel notched their 18th doubles win of the year. Two matches with opponents from the Mid-American Conference await this weekend. The Bearcats will face Western Michigan on Saturday morning before facing SUNY Buffalo Sunday afternoon. The Binghamton women lost their lone match of the week 6-1 on the road at Fairleigh Dickinson. Senior Marina Bykovskaya (Saratov, Russia/Secondary School 8) picked up the lone point for the Bearcats. Next up for Binghamton is a trip south to play four matches in Florida, beginning today with a match against Rollins University.
The Boston University women split their two matches this past weekend. The Terriers rebounded from a 7-0 defeat at Dartmouth on Saturday with a 7-0 home victory against Albany on Sunday. The match against the Great Danes marked Senior Day for Monika Mical (Stalowa, Poland/Penn State), Petra Santini (Sibenik, Croatia/Gimnazija Za Dopisno Obrazovanje Birotehnika) and two-time America East Player of the Year Stefanie Nunic (New York, N.Y./Broward Virtual Education). Dropping a combined 14 games in six singles matches against Albany, the Terriers will next play at UMass on April 10. The Boston U. men saw their two-match win streak snapped after dropping a 6-1 decision at No. 58 St. Johns. Alex Hallenbeck led the Terriers with a victory at No. 6. Next up for the Boston U. men is a date at Hartford on April 14.
Hartford returned to action after an extended period of time off as the men and women combined for five matches this weekend. For the Hawk men, Aneil Bhalla (Ottawa, Ontario/Merivale) earned a victory at No. 2 singles against Fairfield on Thursday. Bhalla picked up the lone point for the Hawks. He dropped the first set, 2-6, but came back to win the second set in a tiebreak, 7-6 (6), before winning the superbreak, 10-8, to earn the victory. Against Hofstra, the team of Bogdan Nedelcu (Rocky, Hill Conn./Rocky Hill) and Alex Holdstein (Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y./Hastings) collected a win at No. 3 doubles. The Hartford men picked up another doubles victory in the No. 2 slot against NJIT in the final match of the weekend. Next up for the Hawks is a match against Merrimack on Thursday before heading out on the road to Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac. On the women’s side, Abby Liu (Houston, Texas/Cypress Falls) earned a point for the Hawks with her win at No. 1 singles against Hofstra, 6-2, 6-2. The women hit the road this week for three matches against Rhode Island, Sacred Heart and Quinnipiac.
In the lone match of the week, the UMBC women fell at Temple, 5-2 on March 31. The men’s match scheduled for that day was postponed and both teams were rained out at Georgetown earlier in the week. Shalini Sahoo (New Delhi, India/TCU) completed a perfect month in singles, winning 7-5 (5), 6-2 at the No. 2 position and improving to 7-0 in March. Sahoo has won 14 of her last 16 singles matches. The reigning America East Player of the Week, Josefin Stange-Jonsson (Vasteras, Sweden/De La Gardiegymnaiset) gained UMBC’s other point versus Temple with a 7-5, 6-2 win. Both teams welcome Stony Brook on Friday while the women also entertain Albany on Saturday.
The Stony Brook women’s team defeated Fairfield 5-2 in its only match of the week. Despite only having five players, the Seawolves won both doubles matches and four of the five contested singles matches. All four of the Seawolves’ singles wins were in straight sets. The Stony Brook men did not compete.