The Binghamton women’s tennis team continued its fall season, hosting the NateRentals.com NEC Invitational this past weekend. Despite not coming out on top in any of their winner’s bracket flights, three Bearcats won their respective consolation brackets. Throughout three days of competition, Binghamton secured a total of 14 wins, six doubles and eight singles.

“Overall, I thought it was a good tournament,” said Binghamton head coach Paul Caceres. “I’m happy with how the weekend went with all the matches.”

The furthest run in the non-consolation bracket by a BU pair was from the duo of senior Natalia Aruj and junior Loren Cuomo. Competing in the A flight of the doubles portion, BU’s duo faced off against Paula Ysabelle Uy and Jasmine Lin from Wagner in the round of 16, handily winning the match 6-1. In their ensuing quarterfinal match, they matched up against the Long Island University duo of Ksenia Reznitskaya and Jenna Svatos, the No. 3 seed in the flight, and they battled for a tight 7-6(5) victory. The pair were eventually knocked out in the semifinals by Saint Francis’ duo of Diana Zuba and Dasha Chichkina, but they rebounded in the third-place matchup, defeating the No. 2 seed 6-3.

“So doubles we actually did the best in the tournament overall, compared to the singles,” Caceres said. “Our first [duo of Aruj and Cuomo] who were in the A flight actually got third place overall, so they did really well … they had good wins against good doubles teams. So I was very happy about that. We also picked up doubles wins C flight.”

Elsewhere on the squad, freshman Clara Arbeloa Lopez continued her strong rookie campaign. Rebounding from a 6-3, 6-4 loss in the first round of the B singles flight, she won two consecutive matches, winning her semifinal game 7-6(2), 6-1, and a close finals match 7-6(8-6), 7-5, finishing as the victor of the flight B consolation bracket. In the flight E singles play, freshman Kayla Castellano and junior Valeria Gonzalez rebounded from round one losses, each winning their semifinal games, The teammates found themselves dueling it out in the consolation bracket final, where Castellano was victorious, defeating her fellow Bearcat 6-1, 6-1.

“In the E flight, we had some wins in there,” Caceres said. “[Castellano] had a good win in the semi-finals of the consolation, and [Gonzalez], same thing. In both of those matches, they split sets and won in super tiebreakers, so I was very pleased.”

The Bearcats’ performances in the doubles matchups were disparate at times, as the four pairs outside of Aruj and Cuomo combined for a 3-4 record amongst all doubles flights. However, the duo of sophomores Samantha Jaros and Nitya Vyas, with the help of a consolation round bye, did advance to the B flight doubles consolation finals. Jaros and Vyas defeated Mercyhurst’s duo of Kiersten Brown and Sierra Rodgers 7-5, securing BU’s third consolation bracket win.

“Obviously, we’re going to continue to practice doubles,” Caceres said. “But I think the focus going into [our next] matches will be to work more on the singles, and particularly super tie-breakers. I know on the first day of the tournament we lost some matches on close super tie-breakers, so we’ll definitely be practicing super tie-breakers, and focusing more on singles.”

Binghamton will continue its fall slate of play, facing off against the University at Buffalo and Saint Francis on Saturday, Oct. 5. The first match time is to be determined at the Miller Tennis Center in Buffalo, New York.