Nine months of work, countless hours on the tennis courts and in the gym ‘ and a conference title came down to just a few points for the top-seeded Binghamton University women’s tennis team.
Seeking their first ever America East Conference championship, the Bearcats fell just short this past weekend in the event held at Yale, as they watched the second-seeded Boston Terriers clinch their 16th-consecutive conference title.
Unlike past years in which the Terriers (9-11, 2-0 AE) raced to the trophy, Binghamton (15-3, 3-1 AE) made Boston do some heavy lifting to get there.
Binghamton’s campaign to win the conference got off to a strong start in the semifinals, where BU defeated fourth-seeded UMBC 4-2. The Bearcats were able to carry momentum over into the finals, starting their match strongly against the Terriers by nabbing the doubles point and going up 1-0.
‘Winning the doubles was very important and it gave us a lot of confidence going into singles,’ Bearcat junior Anna Edelman said.
The match then swung back and forth, as both teams split the first four singles matches to finish. Edelman won 6-4, 6-4 at second singles while teammate Jillian Santos won 6-4, 6-4 at third singles. The Terriers won at first and sixth singles. When Bearcat sophomore Marina Bykovskaya fell at fifth singles to forge a 3-3 tie, the match fell on junior Yulia Smirnova’s shoulders at fourth singles.
Smirnova fought hard in the match’s deciding point, but fell 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, to Petra Santini of Boston. With a large crowd watching, including BU’s men’s tennis team (it defeated UMBC in its title match earlier in the day), the match between Smirnova and Santini became a spectacle, as Smirnova fought through muscle cramps on a hot day in Connecticut.
‘It was very hard watching Yulia,’ Edelman said. ‘I’m so proud of the effort she put forth. She started cramping and I can only imagine how hard it was playing, knowing it came down to her match.’
Edelman’s pride in her team’s effort is not misplaced. Despite losing 4-3, Binghamton came the closest it ever has to winning the AE tournament. Edelman, herself, proved that she has improved her game in defeating Francine Whu 6-4, 6-4; she lost in straight sets to Whu two years ago in her last conference tournament appearance. A proud effort notwithstanding, Binghamton’s players were not satisfied with their result. The Bearcats were the top seed and came to Yale with aspirations of winning the conference tournament.
‘The feeling of losing is not fun,’ junior Lauren Bates said. ‘We are going to use the results as inspiration to work that much harder during the summer and next year to reach our goal of winning the conference.’
Bates will have an opportunity to make good on her word: Next year will be her final season as a Bearcat, and with 72 career victories she appears poised to shatter Zeynep Altinay’s record of 86 match wins (2003-07) next season. Indeed, with Smirnova sitting on 67 wins, the pair will have the chance to chase the school record for wins together, similar to the race for the top spot that Altinay and Lia Kushnirovich made in the 2006-07 season. This will be a big theme next season, as the Bearcats’ entire starting lineup will be returning. Boston, by comparison, loses second singles starter Francine Whu, while returning the rest of its lineup.