The Binghamton University women’s tennis team headed to Ithaca this weekend to kick off its 2011-12 season at the Cornell Fall Invitational.

Although the Invitational was a non-team-scoring event, Binghamton head coach Libby McGovern viewed the weekend as a good opportunity for the team to see where it stands and continue to improve.

“Basically, we went into the weekend knowing that we have things that we need to work on and just kind of wanted to get into some competition and see how we reacted with different teams instead of always playing against our own teammates all the time,” McGovern said. “Our philosophy was just kind of going in there and seeing how well we compete.”

For senior Jillian Santos and freshman Missy Edelblum, the weekend was one filled with promise. They went undefeated in their doubles debut.

After getting a bye in the first round of B flight doubles, Santos and Edelblum knocked off Kirsten Kohager and Courtney Malinchak of Cornell University with a tight 9-8 quarterfinals victory. The following day, the duo topped New Jersey Institute of Technology sophomores Ksenia Kuamenko and Hannelore MacDonald 8-5 to advance to the finals, where they rolled past the Cornell duo of Sarah O’Neil and Rosemary Li for an 8-1 victory.

“[It’s] always an excellent way to start the year when you can say you walked away winning your part of the tournament,” McGovern said of Santos and Edelblum’s performance. “Obviously we’re all very pleased with that.”

In singles play, Santos topped Alex Petrini of Colgate 6-3, 6-1 before falling in the second round of A flight singles to Cornell’s O’Neil. Santos was defeated in the consolation match by Monika Graff of NJIT.

Santos’s doubles partner fared slightly better in her singles plight. After falling in the opening round of the C flight singles, Edelblum picked up two wins in the consolation round to advance to the consolation finals, where she was defeated 6-1, 6-0 by Cornell’s Li.

McGovern believes the success the team experienced the first weekend should be beneficial to the team’s confidence and quest for improvement, especially for the freshmen like Edelblum.

“It just tells you that the things that you’re working on and are practicing are helping you be successful when it comes to your matches and tournaments,” McGovern said. “Going into this weekend, [Edelblum] is going to have a lot of confidence that the things that she’s doing are right and the more you … get that validation, the better that you play.”

Freshman Katherine Medianik will also have this weekend’s solid outing to fall back upon as she advanced to the A flight consolation semifinals in singles play, while finishing in third place in the A flight doubles alongside her partner, senior Marina Bykovskaya.

Bykovskaya finished in fourth in her flight B singles play, while sophomore Jennifer Fridman took fourth place in the C flight singles.

Binghamton is set to continue play this weekend at the Brown Invitational, where the Bearcats are scheduled to kick off play at 9 a.m. Friday.