Last season, the Binghamton men’s tennis team opened the spring season by registering a 2-14 record in non-conference play. But, this year, the Bearcats are off to a much better start.
Binghamton (4-0) returned to the court on Saturday, topping Bucknell, 7-0, to begin non-conference play with four straight victories for the first time since 2009-10.
However, second-year BU men’s tennis head coach Nick Zieziula isn’t judging his team on its win-loss record, at least not yet.
“Last year, at one point, we had lost 14 matches in a row, but we were also getting better,” Zieziula said. “We played very good tennis. Whether we’re winning all our matches, losing all our matches, or somewhere in-between, really what matters is getting us ready for conference play and making sure we’re getting a little bit better each day.”
BU managed to secure the doubles point, capturing two of the three matches. After BU senior Eliott Hureau and freshman Valentin Bouchet were victorious, 6-2, against their Bison counterparts, senior Sid Hazarika and junior Frenk Kote dropped their matchup. But, Bearcat juniors Thomas Caputo and freshman Ludovico Cestarollo rallied for a 7-5 victory to give Binghamton the edge.
“I think that we had a little bit of a sloppy performance in the doubles,” Zieziula said. “Eliott and Valentin played well and got an early break and controlled their match, but we were a little up and down at two and three. We got the doubles point, which was good.”
Binghamton, however, thoroughly dominated the singles portion of play. Each of the Bearcats’ six singles competitors captured straight-set victories over their Bison counterparts, including Hureau’s 6-3, 6-1 victory over Bucknell sophomore Daniel Wright. The win was Hureau’s fourth straight singles victory to open the season and his first career win from the number one position, according to his coach.
“[Hureau’s] been playing really good tennis for really the whole year,” Zieziula said. “He had a good year from the fall. It was nice for him to get his first win at number one.”
The Binghamton women’s tennis team also returned to action this weekend in its first matches of the spring season.
The Bearcats competed in three matches at West Point from Friday to Sunday, falling to Army and Seton Hall, 5-2, and defeating Sacred Heart, 5-2.
“It’s hard to come out and compete because you haven’t competed since October,” BU women’s head coach Libby McGovern said. “I felt like we competed overall, with the first three days of competition this year, at an extremely high level and made progress.”
BU seniors Agatha Ambrozy and Shea Brodsky, junior Annie DiMuro and sophomore Olga Ostrovetsky each recorded at least two singles victories over the weekend while the combination of Ambrozy and Ostrovetsky was the only doubles pair to record a victory in that portion of play. They defeated duos from both Sacred Heart and Seton Hall over the three days of competition.
“At one point during every match, somebody made an impact,” McGovern said. “Every single person really stepped-up and made a difference in different matches at different times — whether it’s doubles, whether it’s singles, whether it’s both, whether it was Friday, Saturday or Sunday.”
Both the BU men and women are set to return to action this weekend. The Bearcat men are set to take on Brown and St. John’s on the road, while the women are scheduled to take on Rutgers and Siena, also away from Vestal.