As the spring season kicks off for Binghamton University women’s tennis, it’s all about preparing for the America East tournament.

And preparation seems to be well underway.

The Bearcats started their season splitting a pair of matches on Jan. 25. The tournament, which featured three teams, took place at Syracuse, where the Bearcats defeated Niagara, 6-1, and lost to Syracuse University, 1-6.

“We lost to a very strong Syracuse team,” said Binghamton head coach Mike Stevens. “The tournament, however, went very well. We had several players that played spectacularly.”

Freshman Jillian Santos shined through, winning both of her singles matches. She first defeated Niagara’s Hilary Hansen, 6-2, 6-4, and then took out Christina Tan of Syracuse, 7-6, 6-4.

Sophomore Yulia Smirnova went 6-0 in her match against Niagara’s Vanja Lakic, and also teamed up with Santos to win a doubles match, 8-2.

Over the weekend, the Bearcats headed to Ithaca to play in the Cornell Winter Invitational, where they won two consolation titles.

Smirnova defeated Army’s Charlee Warford, 3-6, 6-2, 10-7, in the A singles consolation final, while junior Danyelle Shapiro teamed up with freshman Kamila Sherlin to overtake Cornell’s Julia Loomis and Leah Seyburn, 8-0, at the B doubles flight finals.

“These [three] games told us what our strengths are,” Stevens said. “We look in pretty good shape, but we still have to keep on getting better.”

Stevens stressed the importance of working to clinch the America East championships.

“Our long term goal every year is to win the AE championships,” he said. “Right now the aim is to just keep getting better every day so we are ready for all the matches.”

The Bearcats head to West Point for the weekend to play Seton Hall on Saturday and Army on Sunday.