BLOOMSBURG, Pa. - The Slippery Rock University women's tennis team lost to Mercyhurst University, 4-1, in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament championship match Friday at the Burt Reese Tennis Courts in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
 
While Slippery Rock will not receive the automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament that comes with winning the PSAC Tournament, it is still a strong favorite to earn one of the four at-large berths in the Atlantic Region as SRU has a strong resume from a very successful season and entered the week ranked third in the region.
 
The loss drops The Rock's record to 16-8 on the season while Mercyhurst improves to 17-7 after the win.
 
The Lakers were able to capture two of the three doubles matches to earn the day's first point before closing out the championship-bout with three singles victories.
 
The Rock's top doubles pairing of Viola Lugmayr and Lois Page suffered a rare loss to start the contest as Sangeeta Roopan and Kayla Frost eked out a close 6-4 win. Slippery Rock bounced back though at No. 2 doubles when Lacey Cohen and Olivia Warner downed Ivona Plecevic and Naomi Jaho, 6-3.

The win was the 100th in Cohen's career. She is just the 11th player in program history to reach the milestone. 
 
Mercyhurst was able to earn the all-important doubles point with a narrow 7-6 (3) victory in the third flight by Hannah Wenzel and Athina Tsagkaraki over Allie Welch and Lauren Fadden.
 
Slippery Rock quickly evened the match at 1-1 to start singles play when Lois Page beat Plecevic by retirement. Page was winning 5-0 when the retirement occurred.
 
However, The Rock's comeback bid ended there as the Lakers closed out the contest with wins from the second, fifth and sixth flights to capture the championship. Roopan edged Lugmayr at second singles 6-2, 6-4 while Jahr got the best of Fadden 7-6 (6), 6-3 from the fifth flight and Wenzel barely out-lasted Welch in the sixth flight 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.
 
With Mercyhurst having already clinched the team victory, the first and fourth flight matches were halted.
 
Slippery Rock will officially learn its NCAA Tournament fate when the national office unveils the 48-team field 8:30 p.m. Tuesday on NCAA.com.
 



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