Women's Tennis | 4/25/2022 4:54:00 PM
WEST CHESTER, Pa. – The Bloomsburg University women's tennis team is set to square off with West Chester in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Quarterfinals on Tuesday. The first-round matchup will be played at West Chester and is slated to begin at 3:00 PM.
A win would bring the Huskies back home to Bloomsburg for the semifinals this weekend as the final two rounds will be held at the Burt Reese Tennis Center on Bloomsburg's upper campus on Friday and Saturday.
For the Huskies to play in championship weekend on their home court, they must first avenge a loss they suffered to the Golden Rams earlier in the season. The teams faced each other on April 2 and West Chester won the contest, 6-1.
Bloomsburg's loss to West Chester is just one of two PSAC matches the Huskies lost during the spring season, and since the team fell to Edinboro on April 8, the team rattled off four straight conference wins to clinch the No. 3 seed in the tournament. The Huskies enter the match with a conference record of 5-2 while West Chester – the No. 2 seed – is 6-1 against conference opponents.
Lexi Quackenbush (Pittsburgh, PA/Fox Chapel),
Isabella Sarquis (Belo Horizonte, Brazil/Metodo) and
Rea Hagishima (Tokyo, Japan/Meguro Nihon University High School) lead the Huskies with five conference wins each. In doubles competitions, the duo of
Alyssa Mazurek (McAdoo, PA/Hazleton Area) and Sarquis is 4-0 against conference opponents while the tandem of Quackenbush and Hagishima is 3-0.
Alese Rinker (/) is also 3-0 in PSAC singles competitions and she is undefeated while competing with
Alyssa Kapcsos (Bethlehem, Pa./Freedom) in PSAC doubles competitions.
Luana Bernardi (Aruja, Sao Paulo, Brazil/Colegio Reino) and
Sarah Capoferri (Lancaster, Pa./Lampeter-Strasburg) are also 2-0 in doubles. Bernardi is fourth on the team in singles competitions with four conference wins and five overall.
During the team's matchup against West Chester on April 2, the Golden Rams won the three doubles competitions and Hagishima was the only Husky to win a singles match despite a few other close matches. In the No. 3 singles match, Quackenbush fell to Elaina Lee in a tiebreaker set as the two split the first two sets (6-4, 4-6). The No. 5 singles match between Bernardi and Gabriella Lerario did not go to a tiebreaker set, but the two sets did go to an extra point to decide the victor. Bernardi ultimately lost the match after Lerario took both sets by identical scores of 7-5.
The semifinals on Friday will begin at 2:00 PM for the women and the championships will begin at 1:00 PM on Saturday. The men's semifinals will kick things off at Bloomsburg on Friday as they begin matches at 11:00 AM. Then on Saturday, the men's championship matches will begin at 10:00 AM.
The men's team will be playing in the semifinal against No. 1 seed Edinboro on Friday. A preview for their matchup will be available later this week, as will links to livestream the competitions.
