Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Long Island, NY - The SUNY Oneonta women's tennis team, fresh off its 5-4 defeat of SUNY Geneseo, headed back on the road to Long Island to face Skyline Conference foes St. Joseph's College and SUNY Farmingdale this weekend.  There was no victory hangover and, before the day was over on Sunday, the SUNY Oneonta women left Long Island not having dropped an individual match and defeated both squads with  identical 9-0 shutouts.

Saturday, September 23^rd match v St. Joseph started off a bit slow for the Red Dragons.  However, after the doubles they did go up 3-0.  Senior Alyssa Brault (Rochester/Churchville-Chili) and freshman Julieta Eulau (Oceanside/Oceanside) went down 3-0 earlier in their doubles match but the deficit did not deter their resolve and they came back to win 8-6.  Freshman Mya Lispscomb and senior Samantha Felice (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) were in no danger and won easily 8-0 at the second flight.  The third doubles team of freshman Emma Messenger (Marlboro/Marlboro) and sophomore Danielle Swiercyzna got in trouble early in the match but pulled away and took down the third doubles pair from St. Joseph's college 8-5. 

With a commanding 3-0 lead after doubles Brault, Lipscomb, Felice, Messenger and Swiercyzna came away with easy singles straight set wins.  Swiercyzna got a rare start in singles today winning 6-4, 6-1 while Eulau rested still feeling sore from her big win against the Knights two days earlier.   Junior Michelle Halpern (Rye Brook/Blind Brook) had the challenging match of the day when she also fell down 3-0 in the first set playing out of position at number two singles, one spot up from her normal third singles.  In that second position she came back from the 3-0 deficit and secured the first set in a tiebreaker and doubled her opponent in the second set 6-3.  Halpern's win secured the shutout for the Red Dragon women and at the time moved them to 6-0.

No rest for the Red Dragons staying on Long Island they reconvened on Sunday, September 24^th at SUNY Farmingdale with the heat being 90 degrees and even hotter on the court.  The Red Dragons did not stall.  Teaming up again at the number one doubles flight was Eulau and Brault who won against a seasoned Farmingdale Rams pair 8-3.  Felice and Lipscomb also had little trouble at the second flight with a routine 8-2 triumph.  Messenger and Swiercyzna shutout their opponents in the third doubles position 8-0. 

With the heat, a 3-0 lead and the Red Dragons playing three matches in four days the singles lineup was tweaked to give some players rest.  The day's revised lineup still had a similar result.  Brault won 6-2, 6-0,  Lipscomb played one spot up from her usual fourth position and won 6-0, 6-3 at third flight.  Swiercyzna normally a doubles specialist had to play her second singles match of the weekend this time in the fourth spot and there she played very steady earning a 6-2, 6-2 victory.  Freshman Gianna Papini (Helwett/George W. Hewlett) got her first start in the main lineup of the fall in the fifth position.  Papini shook off some nerves and pulled out a 6-4, 6-4 straight set win.  Messenger anchored the lineup again in the sixth position and did not lose a single game on the day in both singles and doubles earning a 6-0, 6-0 conquest. 

The match of the day came from Felice who played up three positions from her normal five spot to the number two singles flight.  Felice dropped the first set 6-1 just trying to deal with the heat and the nerves at the highest position she ever played in.  Felice then settled in and found herself in a battle owning a 5-2 lead in the second set and then just four games later quickly found herself down 6-5.  She forced the set into a seven-point tiebreaker and won that 8-6.  Now on to the super-tiebreaker to determine the second flight.  Falling down 3-1 and 4-2 Felice battled through heat, fatigue and played mentally tough tennis and ultimately earned a match point at 9-4.  She lost the next three points and finally converted match point to gain a 10-7 victory in the super-breaker.  She bent over in exhaustion as her teammates mobbed her after victory.  Felice's triumph clinched the weekend's double shutout of St. Joseph and Farmingdale.

The Red Dragons return home and take on the its rival SUNY Cortland in a very important conference match on Tuesday, September 26^th beginning at 3:30 pm at the Hesissan Tennis Courts on the campus of SUNY Oneonta.