INDIANA, Pa. - The Slippery Rock University women's tennis team's comeback bid against the University of Charleston fell just short Saturday as the Golden Eagles edged The Rock, 5-3, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at the Maple Street Courts in Indiana, Pennsylvania.
 
SRU ends its season with an overall record of 13-13. Charleston improves to 18-6 on the year and advances on to play Indiana University (Pa.) Sunday in second round competition.
 
Slippery Rock lost all three doubles matches, but rallied back to win three of the first four singles bouts before Charleston was able halt SRU's late-contest heroics by earning a second singles win to secure the fifth and match-deciding point.
 
Katie Swann and Elise Edwards picked up the first point of the day at No. 1 doubles with an 8-2 win against Lacey Cohen and Carla Corrochano Moracho.
 
UC's second doubles tandem of Silvana Slusarciuc and Kristine Gegeshidze proceeded to produce an 8-2 win of their own over Olivia Warner and Viola Lugmayr while the Golden Eagles' third-flight pairing of Alize Uyttenhove and Bridget Dillon closed the doubles sweep with a narrow 8-6 triumph against Lauren Fadden and Allie Welch.
 
Undeterred, Slippery Rock regrouped and gave five great singles performances to nearly pull off the come-from-behind win.
 
Welch earned SRU's first point when she bested Uyttenhove 6-1, 6-1 in the sixth flight. The victory was her 16th of the season. Charleston answered Welch's victory by tallying another win of its own when Gegeshidze beat Corochano 6-0, 6-1 in the second flight to push its lead on The Rock to 4-1.
 
Slippery Rock kept the pressure on Charleston and cut its deficit down to just 4-3 thanks to a 6-1, 6-3 win by Fadden in the fifth flight against Dillon and a 1-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory by Lugmayr against Edwards in the third flight. Fadden exits her freshman season with 19 wins while Lugmayr closes her 2017-18 season with a 17-6 record.
 
However, Slusarciuc was able to dash The Rock's hopes by barely edging Warner 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 in a hard-fought fourth flight contest, giving Charleston the fifth and match-deciding point. With UC already having the needed five points to advance, the No. 1 singles match between Cohen and Swann was left unfinished.
 
While the season did not end how The Rock hoped, the future remains bright for SRU women's tennis as five its seven players on the 2017-18 roster were underclassmen and only one member of this year's team will be lost due to graduation.  
 




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