Women’s Tennis Splits Spring Break Doubleheader

Next Match: at Lehigh 3/22/2025 | 11:00 a.m. Next Match Full Schedule Mar. 22 (Sat) / 11:00 a.m. at Lehigh

Keith Puryear

Facing a pair of quality opponents Wednesday at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Fla., the Navy women's tennis team started its spring break by posting a 5-2 win over Quinnipiac in the afternoon before having its comeback fall short in a 4-2 evening loss to Middle Tennessee.The Wednesday split moved the Midshipmen to 10-9 on the season, while the Bobcats shifted to 2-7 and the Blue Raiders improved to 10-5 overall.Navy opened the afternoon by securing a quick double point against QU, as the freshman duo ofandposted a 6-1 win over the No. 3 pairing of Trista Caffyn-Parsons and Vera Sekerina, while the second court saw seniorand rookiedefeat the Bobcats' Jordan Bradley and Anagha Shankar, 6-1. Playing out No. 1 doubles, QU's Willow Renton and Caitlin Flower pulled away for a 7-5 victory against seniorand freshmanNavy continued to add points when seniorstarted singles play with a 6-4, 6-0 win over Renton on the top court, while sophomorewas victorious, 6-3, 6-2, over Sekerina in the No. 4 spot. Amspacher-Philemon then clinched Navy's 10th win of the spring when she beat Ella Lewis, 6-3, 6-1, in the sixth flight.Quinnipiac got on the board with Caroline Schulson's 7-5, 6-4 victory over Oh at the No. 5 slot, while Eklund scored Navy's fifth point with a 4-6, 6-3, 10-3 win against Shankar in the No. 3 flight and Flower picked up a 7-5, 6-4 victory against freshmanon the second court.The night-time showdown found the Blue Raiders striking first via a 6-0 win by the No. 2 pairing of Alessia Truden and Rutuka Chaphalkar over Li and senior, but Navy evened doubles action with Tannenbaum and Fermo notching the 6-2 victory against Eloise Swarbrick and Lena Peyer. Coming down to the third court, Ilaria Sposetti and Cassidy Mataia edged out the Mids' duo of freshmanand sophomore, 7-5, lock up the doubles point for MTSU.Turning to singles, Mataia kicked it off with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Pal on the fifth court and Sposetti followed with a 6-4, 6-2 victory against Shanker in the No. 2 spot. Gu got Navy back in it by defeating Sara Conde, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 in the No. 4 position andcontinued the roll with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Zenn Lim in the sixth flight.Rallying in the No. 3 position, Bellia forced a tiebreaker in the third set after dropping the opening set but eventually fell to Peyer, 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7-1), to seal Middle Tennessee's victory."Two great battles today. We did a good job in both of adjusting to outdoor tennis conditions. While the second one didn't quite go our way, we played courageously in both matches, which I feel is a good precursor for our upcoming Patriot League matches."• Navy is now 4-0 in the all-time series with Quinnipiac and 0-1 in the all-time series with Middle Tennessee.• Tannenbaum needs six more doubles wins to break the program single-season record of 24.• Tannenbaum also needs four more wins at the No. 1 doubles spot to break the program career record of 23.• Tannenbaum and Amspacher-Philemon have both won their last three completed singles matches.Navy opens its Patriot League slate with road matches on back-to-back days, playing at Lehigh on March 22 and at Bucknell on March 23.

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