The Binghamton women’s tennis team competed in its second invitational of the fall season over the weekend at the Bill and Sandra Moore Invitational, hosted by Navy. At the event, the duo of sophomore Olga Ostrovetsky and senior Agatha Ambrozy led the pack for BU in doubles play. The pair finished the invitational in second place of the Flight B doubles bracket.
Despite the fact that fall tournaments like the Bill and Sandra Moore Invitational do not count toward Binghamton’s regular season — set to start in January — BU head coach Libby McGovern stressed the importance of pre-season preparation.
“If we didn’t play in these tournaments, it would not be very pretty,” McGovern said. “These tournaments are 100 percent necessary, otherwise we’re only playing against ourselves.”
McGovern believes that these preseason tournaments help the team’s problem solving, assessment skills, game planning and stress management.
“It helps us get more comfortable with match play,” McGovern said. “We can refresh how we need to structure our big points.”
In the singles round, junior Annie DiMuro downed Navy sophomore Amanda Keller, 7-6 (7-2), 6-1, before dropping her next match.
Ostrovetsky and Ambrozy took care of pairs from James Madison, Loyola, Navy and Towson on Friday and Saturday to secure a spot in the tournament’s final round. Facing Towson freshman Lucy Gloninger and junior Sophie Lesage in the final round, Ostrovetsky and Ambrozy fell, 6-2.
Regardless of the results from the tournament, the team got plenty of practice for the season since they played in a competitive environment against players other than their teammates. As McGovern put it, the team played “a lot of tennis in a short amount of time.”
The Bearcats will continue their fall-season circuit on Friday at the Army Invitational in West Point, New York.