The Boston University women’s tennis team defeated 1-2 Seton Hall University Saturday, winning their only non-invitational match of the fall. The Terriers swept the Pirates, winning all four doubles matches before winning each of the eight singles contests.
Erin Katims stood out for the Terriers at the No. 1 singles. The junior from Boca Raton, Fla. defeated Seton Hall’s Viviana Figueroa, 6-3, 6-1. “The score may have made it look easy,” Katims said. “But it wasn’t. I think it was a great win for me. Everything I’ve been working on in practice came together for me and I was able to focus.”
“We are returning our entire team from last year,” said BU coach Lesley Sheehan, entering her 21st season. “And we expect our incoming freshmen to help us out a lot.”
And all three Terrier freshmen pulled through, helping the upperclassmen carry the load in the Saturday sweep.
The No. 3 singles match saw freshman Cori Lefkowith defeat Danielle Viola without dropping a game, 6-0, 6-0, while sophomore Gina Sabatino defeated Nadja Sein, 6-0, 6-2 in the No. 2 spot.
In the singles fourth slot, freshman Danielle Abraham breezed to a 6-2, 6-4 win over Seton Hall’s Sylvia Jaros.
In the No. 5 and No. 6 matches, freshman Yana Sadovskaya defeated Amanda El-Tobgy, 6-1, 6-1 while Monica Shepherd cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 win over the Pirates’ Veronika Gerka.
Senior Aimee Charest was on her way to victory in the No. 7 match before her opponent, Iva Gyurgina, was forced to leave the court due to injury. Charest officially won the match 6-4, 3-0.
The Terriers dropped only one set on the day in the eighth and final singles match, but sophomore Laura Stiekema rallied to a 7-5, 4-6, 10-8 win against Seton Hall’s Jennifer Seide.
The domination didn’t stop in doubles.
The pairings of Shepherd/Sabatino and Abraham/Lefkowith each defeated their opponents, 8-4 in the No.1 and No. 2 matches, respectively.
In the third doubles spot, Katims and Sadovskaya won their match, 8-1, while the fourth pair of Stiekema and Gabrielle Hernandez defeated their opponents, 8-3.
“We were really aggressive,” Katims said. “We were serving and volleying really well.”
It was the first time Katims and Sadovskaya played together.
Saturday’s match was the last of fall ball for the Terriers, as they prepare for their upcoming spring season, slated to start at home against the University of Montreal Jan. 20. Sheehan said she expects a successful campaign and thinks this latest match against Seton Hall prepared her team.
“It looked like a great win for us,” Sheehan said. “It’ll help us enter the season on a positive note.”
Another factor Sheehan will look to is the experience her team will carry with them into the spring, as well as an exciting freshmen class. Last year’s Terriers topped the conference with an 11-9 record, and all of the America East championship team (the 12th consecutive BU team to win the conference title) returns for the 2005-06 season.
“Our team looks really good,” Katims said of this year’s squad. “Our freshmen are really good. We have a really diverse team and we should be great.”
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