After a crushing loss at the hands of Army last Friday, the UConn tennis team will take on two opponents this weekend, giving themselves a shot at retaining a winning record on the season as they aim to improve steadily up to tournament season. First, they will take on Stony Brook University this Friday at 6 p.m. and will then face Drexel University on Sunday at noon, both at the Magic Lincer Tennis Academy in Manchester, Connecticut.
The Huskies currently have a sour taste in their mouth, courtesy of the West Point-located branch of the armed forces, Army, and the harsh reality that they couldn’t manage to take a single victory against a strong foe. It is important to note, though, that there were a few really competitive matches that nearly resulted in UConn flipping that score to look much closer. The doubles-1 and doubles-3 teams, comprised of Olivia Wright with Maria Constantinou and Doga Selen Takunyaci with Caroline Cook respectively, fought valiantly and pushed the opposition nearly to the brink. Doubles-3 got their match to the tiebreaker, but they couldn’t pull through as Army’s McKinnley Smith and Anna Loureiro closed it out. Wright, Isabel Petri Bere and Cameron Didion made life difficult for their opposition in the singles side of the meet, but ultimately, UConn couldn’t take down any of their opponents that day.
The proposition of better matchups this weekend might give the Huskies some hope, however. Stony Brook has thus far gone 2-1 overall, and have yet to play in an in-conference meet. Their only loss on the season was a surprisingly close one by a score of 4-3 to the same Army squad that walloped the Huskies last week. Besides that, they’ve only managed a couple close wins against schools that UConn has done comparatively well against. The Seawolves’ last meet was against Fairfield University, who they ultimately defeated, but only by a score of 4-3, whereas when UConn played Fairfield, they dominated them 6-1. Thus, that match will likely be on more level ground, hopefully resulting in a less lopsided score.
The Huskies’ second opponent of the weekend, Drexel University, holds a 4-3 overall record without any conference play to speak of. They are the benefactors of a two-meet win streak, as they squarely beat their last two opponents, Delaware State and Lehigh University, by 5-2 scores. Though they’ve been on an upswing as of late, their overall season picture is a little more mixed. The Dragons have had some ugly losses, including one versus Long Island (2-5), one versus Syracuse (2-4), and their worst one against Rutgers (1-6). Similar to Stony Brook, Drexel will prove themselves to be a worthy adversary for UConn.
Connecticut will hope that this weekend will go much smoother than the last one as they look to face much closer competition this weekend. Hopefully for the Huskies, they’ll be able to pull out two wins and head into Monday with a well-earned 4-2 record.
