The College of Staten Island women’s tennis team won for the fourth-straight time and for the third time in that run by a score of 5-4, this time over visiting Rutgers University – Camden in non-conference action at the CSI Tennis Center. The Dolphins advanced to 7-2 overall with the win while the Scarlet Raptors fell to 3-5.
Play started with Doubles, and it was there that CSI took a critical 2-1 lead that would ultimately hold up the rest of the way. Jenna O’Lexy and Lexi Sample scored a win first in the No. 1 position against CSI’s Viktoriya Volkova and Tristiana Adragna, but the Dolphins bounced back with a pair of gritty wins in the other flights. First, Samantha Maizer and Katherine Villarroel stayed hot by scoring an 8-6 win over RU’s Danielle Lemma and Anna Archut, and then the CSI team of Aziza Jurabaeva and Hannah Bruschi kept the lead intact with a win over Abby Banner and Trinh Nguyen by the same, 8-6, count.
All CSI needed from there was a split and they got it. O’Lexy won for RU via the retirement of Volkova, but Adragna struck down RU’s Lemma in the no. 2 spot, 6-1, 6-0, in response.
RU took both the Nos. 3-4 spots. Sample took a very competitive 6-4, 6-3, decision over Jurabaeva and Banner looked crisp in a 6-0, 6-3 winner over Villarroel one rung lower. But CSI’s tandem of Bruschi and Guetanie Romain struck back and made the scoring stand.
At No. 5 Bruschi survived Archut in the first set, 7-6, and then proved too strong in a 6-2 win to close it out in set number two. In the No. 6 flight, Romain was efficient in a 6-2 win and then backed it up with a 6-4 winner to close things out over Christina Lee.
This was only the second meeting ever between the two teams and CSi has now won both meetings. It marked for the first ever meeting between the two sides in Staten Island.
CSI, which already wrapped up the CUNYAC Regular Season Championship, will wrap things up with two away matches, starting tomorrow at Yeshiva University at 4:15pm. They wrap up at Kean University on Wednesday at 6:30pm.
