The College of Staten Island women’s tennis squad ran their season-long winning streak to seven games, scoring a thrilling, 5-4, win over Kean University as part of non-league play in their regular season finale in Union, NJ. The Dolphins improved to 13-3 overall while the Cougars fell to 8-4.
CSI got off to a 2-1 advantage after doubles and the lead would eventually hold up, but not before some great play throughout that kept things even. First, CSI’s doubles team of Nozima Toshpulatova and Guetanie Romain scored a crisp, 8-1, win at No. 3, and then the CSI duo of Sabrina Bragerton-Nasert and Viktoriya Volkova earned a hard-fought, 8-6, winner over KU’s Brianna Martin and Naylah Hinton. Kean kept things close however with a big win at No. 2 scoring, scoring a 9-8 (7-3) win over CSI’s Madiha Mulla and Samantha Maizer.
When play turned to singles, CSI scored a win at No. 2 with Bragerton-Nasert winning 10-2 over Christy Verdi. But KU battled back. Shruti Nadkarri defeated Volkova at No. 4, 10-2, and then Alyssa Peterson scored a 10-5 winner at No. 5 over Maizer and Rose Hughes was a 10-0 winner at No. 6 over Romain. That gave Kean a 4-3 lead with Toshpulatova and Mulla in their matches.
Those matchups proved successful for the Dolphins. At the top spot, Toshpulatova was sensational in a 10-2 win over Hinton, and then at No. 3 Mulla was lights-out in a 10-1 win over Bell. That shifted the game back to CSI, giving them the 5-4 win.
CSI finalized the regular season at 13-3 and will now usher in the CUNYAC postseason as the conference’s No. 2 seed. They will host No. 7 CCNY on Friday, October 23, at 4pm, at the CSI Tennis Center.
