FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – The Ursinus College women's tennis team opened its season at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Southeast Regional, sending four of its players to the weekend tournament hosted by the University of Mary Washington.
The Bears still had one singles entry and both of their doubles teams alive when they headed back to Collegeville on Saturday morning, and all four competitors won at least one match.
Senior Aileen BeVard and sophomore Caitlyn Sorelle represented the Bears in the championship singles and championship doubles brackets. Both were dealt a tough hand, drawing the top two seeds in their opening round matches. While BeVard suffered a tight loss in her consolation match, Sorelle picked up an 8-5 victory over Dickinson's Alexandra Epstein.
BeVard and Sorelle faced off with Haverford's Greta Koch and Emily Shutman in the first round of the doubles draw, falling by a slim 8-6 margin. The Bears' top pair came back to handle Franklin & Marshall's Gavriel Rubenstein and Jingzi Wu, 8-2, in another intra-conference matchup.
BeVard's victory was the 70th of her career, making her just the third in program history to eclipse that milestone.
Seniors Ariel Danziger and Ashley Nguyen also made the trip for Ursinus. Danziger was the lone Bear to win a match on Saturday, shutting out Sweet Briar's Claire Bodine 6-0, 6-0 before losing to Christopher Newport's Emily Morgan in the quarterfinals of the Blue 2 singles bracket. Nguyen was 0-2 in the Blue 1 singles draw.
Danziger and Nguyen garnered a victory in the Blue 2 doubles tournament, edging Lynchburg's Reagan Coon and Sarah Wyly by an 8-5 margin to reach the consolation semifinals.