WEXFORD, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University women's tennis team lost to Cleveland State University, 6-1, Saturday night at the Pennsylvania Tennis Academy in Wexford, Pennsylvania.
 
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Saturday's match marked the first official competition for any Slippery Rock varsity team since March 13, 2020. The 352 days between official competition dates is the second longest stretch in school history without an athletic event. The longest timespan between games came during World War II when Slippery Rock went 713 days without varsity competition.
 
Lacey Cohen, a five-time All-Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division honoree and sixth winningest athlete in program history, earned The Rock's lone victory of the night against CSU, a Division I team that competes in the Horizon League, with a win at No. 3 singles. The victory was the 124th of her career.
 
Cleveland State (1-4) earned the first team point of the night after capturing doubles victories in the first and third flights as Miruna Vasilescu and Klara Mrcela defeated Lois Page and Adriana Gonzalez Sanchez, 6-0, while Selma Tounsi and Bethany Yauch claimed a 6-2 victory over Amy Varckette and Lauren Fadden.
 
The doubles portion of Saturday's match concluded with a close contest in the second flight where Kateryna Avram and Blanche Lenoan narrowly edged Lacey Cohen and Olivia Warner, 7-5.
 
The Rock's hopes for a comeback were quickly dashed as the Vikings proceeded to win five straight singles matches to clinch the team victory.
 
Vasilescu bested Page in the top singles flight 6-1, 6-3. Lenoan then defeated Gonzalez Sanchez, 6-2, 6-2 in the second slot followed by a 6-2, 6-1 victory by Avram over Fadden in the sixth flight to give Cleveland State a 4-0 lead.
 
The Vikings went on to gain wins from the fourth and fifth flights, respectively, as Tounsi downed Gabi del Val del Toro (6-2, 7-5) and Sian Payne beat Warner (7-5, 6-1).
 
However, Cohen closed the night on a high note, and helped SRU avoid a shutout in the process, with a quality victory over Yauch in the third flight. Cohen took the opening set from Yauch, 6-4 before Yauch countered with a 7-6 (5) win in the second set to even match. Not to be outdone, Cohen rallied back with a 10-5 victory in the tiebreaker to cap off a great contest.
 
Slippery Rock returns to action March 7 against Carnegie Mellon University for the annual non-conference match between The Rock and the Tartans.



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