Sept. 12, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.- The Penn State women's tennis team competed in their first matches of the season Friday. At the Cissie Leary Invitational, eight Nittany Lions played in the singles flight with no Penn Stater advancing to the second round. Hannah Kratky (Greenwich, Conn.) lost in straight sets to Jang-Milsten of Harvard 6-0, 6-0. Emily Rivers (Washington, D.C.) was defeated by Carol Finke of Yale 6-0, 6-0. Melissa Minniti (Gaithersburg, Md.) lost 6-2, 6-2 to Cassandre Thebault of Maryland. Kelly Mengel (Pittsburgh, Pa.) fell to Yana Khon of Temple 6-3, 6-2. Taylor Shukow (Boca Raton, Fla.) lost to Lindsay Graff of Princeton 6-2, 6-3.
Samantha Tutelman (New York, N.Y.) defeated Irina Preotescu of St. John's 6-2, 6-1 in a consolation match. Tutelman moves on to play Hanna Yu of Yale. "Our main goal with this first weekend of play was to get match experience. Penn's tournament gives us many matches each day," said head coach Chris Cagle.
Penn State also had four doubles teams compete on Friday. The team of Mengel/Xu lost to Ellgegren/Dudas of St. John's 8-4. Tutelman/Shukow lost to Li/Jang-Milsten of Harvard 8-2. Minniti/Kratky were defeated by Okajima/Willis of Temple 8-3. Rivers/Petruzillo fell to Yu/Hamilton of Yale 8-0.
At the Midland Tournament, almost every single match was washed out because of rain. Kim Surin (Montreal, Canada) leads 1-0 in her match before being postponed. Saturday's schedule will mirror Friday's schedule. "I know our players in Midland will be ready to get on the court and compete tomorrow with only being able to warm up today," said Cagle. "Tomorrow should be good matches in both tournaments so we will get ready to get after it."
The Nittany Lions are back in action October 3 when they head to the Bulldog Invitational in New Haven, Ct. Follow Penn State on social media as the Nittany Lions are on Facebook at Penn State Women's Tennis, on Twitter @pennstateWTEN, and on Instagram @pennstateWTEN.