NORTH HAVEN — About an hour and a half. That’s how long it took Quinnipiac women’s tennis to send Stonehill back home Saturday night, neither Bobcat dropping more than three games in a set in a 7-0 sweep.
The Bobcats started off strong and snagged the doubles points just 20 minutes into the meet. The Skyhawks were simply no match for Bobcats’ quick call reactions on the net and their serves.
“We work a lot on doubles and putting balls away,” head coach Paula Miller said. “We’re still working on the teams, today was two new teams out there. You know, you need to win two out of three, so we’re still trying to find the best combinations to win those points.”
The first team of freshman Anagha Shankar and graduate student Jordan Bradley defeated the Skyhawks’ duo of sophomore Anneliese Beltran and freshman Madison Warren 6-1.
Following them, freshman duo Caroline Schulson and Caitlin Flower won their game 6-0.
And the last pair, freshman Ella Lewis and sophomore Nikole Lisovyy upset their opponents 6-3.
“Today we looked good, so I think we might try (the combinations) again and see how it goes,” Miller said.
With this win, Schulson and Flower now moved to 7-2 as a doubles team this season.
Following those quick wins, Quinnipiac took to the singles matches confidently. Sophomore Vera Sekerina, Flower and Bradley took their first sets without much trouble 6-0, easily dealing with the Skyhawks’ attempts at high and long balls that can be difficult to deal with in the smaller space of the North Haven Health & Racquet courts. Sekerina could attest to that, as one of such points led to her slamming her racquet into the back wall.
That did not deter the Kazan, Russia, native in the slightest as she only allowed her opponent Beltran only one game in the second set. Flower repeated Sekerina’s final score.
Schulson took out Warren 6-1 and 6-2. Bradley upset Skyhawks junior Marissa Such 6-3 in the second set. Lisovyy’s opponent, junior Jenna Gustafson, put up a little fight in the first set winning two games, but the Quinnipiac sophomore did not allow her anymore, taking the second set 6-0.
Quinnipiac senior Dominique Yeo was 6-2 and 5-1 in the second set when her opponent retired as they were the last match still playing, and no matter the outcome Quinnipiac sent Stonehill home without a single point to its name.
“Stonehill just turned (Division I) so they’re just building,” Miller said. “They did great, but you know, there’s teams in our conference that are not so different than them.”
Quinnipiac won 89 out of the 106 games played tonight, in its second win of the season. Not a single Bobcat allowed their opponent to win more than three games per match.
“I think the freshman learned a lot from today,” Miller said. “Maybe (Stonehill didn’t) hit the ball as hard as we’ve been playing, but we have to play a different type of game, when you play different styles of players.”
Quinnipiac will return to the North Haven Health & Racquet Club on Feb. 17 at 6 p.m. to face Stony Brook. When these teams met last year, almost to the day, the Bobcats sent the Seawolves home 4-2.
