FLUSHING, N.Y. – Looking to clinch their third East Coast Conference title in four years and the automatic bid to the 2023 NCAA Women's Tennis Tournament, the #3 seed Queens College women's tennis team returned to ECC Final as they dethroned the University of the District of Columbia Friday afternoon, and had a huge task in front of them as they matched up against the regular season champions and #1 seed St. Thomas Aquinas College Spartans Saturday afternoon inside the QC Tennis Bubble.
Saturday's match of a rematch of the 2021 ECC Final when head coach
Alan Nagel and the Knights defeated the Spartans 4-0 as they clinched their second title in two seasons. But Saturday's match would be the reverse as the Knights fell 4-0 to the Spartans as STAC clinched their ECC title.
Doubles Play
It was a closely contested double match with all three matches going down to the wire.
The Knights fell behind 1-0 as the #1 senior doubles pair of
Maja Makal (Bialystok, Poland), /
Gabriela Sciarrotta (Woodmere, N.Y.) fell 6-4 to Ebba Rosberg/Samantha Villegas Robles before Queens #2 doubles of pair of junior
Ana Tarbujaru (Valcea, Romania) / freshman
Apolline Lamy (Toulouse, France) tied the doubles competition 1-1 as they defeated Jemima Parkinson/Elita Silins to the score of 6-4.
All three doubles scores would be identical as it came down to the third doubles match for the second match in a row against the Spartans this fall. But STAC would clinch the doubles point as the Knights' #3 pair of senior
Chloe Certain (Obernai, France) / sophomore
Rea Hagishima (Tokyo, Japan) fell 6-4 to Paula Palero/Eliza Mulder.
Singles Play
With Queens playing from behind, STAC continued their run as Certain fell 6-3, 6-4 at #6 singles to Silins.
Sciarrotta would fall at #4 singles as the Spartans Robles earned a 6-0, 6-2 victory giving them a 3-0 commanding lead.
Needing to clinch all four remaining singles matches, Lamy and junior
Caroline Hany-Fawzy (Alexandria, Egypt) took their singles to the third set as the Knights looked for a comeback.
Tarbujaru would suffer a closely contested first set loss at #5 singles as she fought back from a 5-1 deficit to send the first set to a tiebreaker but STAC Amaia Balaguer Brau would clinch the first set with a 7-6
(7-3) victory before Brau clinched the match with a 6-2 second set victory over for the ECC title.
The Knights conclude the fall season with a 5-3 overall record and will look forward to building their resume in the spring season as they look to clinch an At-Large bid to the NCAA Women's Tennis Tournament.
The full schedule will be released in early 2023.
For the latest news on Queens College Athletics, follow the Knights at queensknights.com or via social media on Facebook (Queens College Athletics), Twitter (@QCKnights), and Instagram (qcknightsny), Women's Tennis (qcwtennis).
