Results
 
WEXFORD, Pa. - The Slippery Rock University women's tennis team had its 2023 season come to an end Tuesday following a 4-1 loss to No. 43 Indiana University (Pa.) in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at the Oxford Athletic Club in Wexford, Pennsylvania.
 
Slippery Rock closes the season with an overall record of 16-9. SRU has now posted five consecutive winning seasons and has advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 13 of the last 16 years the event has been held. Included in The Rock's overall record this season was a solid 15-7 mark against fellow Division II competition.
 
SRU took the doubles point from Indiana to open the match, but IUP was able to overcome the early setback by winning four straight singles bouts to clinch the match and keep its championship hopes alive.
 
Following a 6-2 win by Natalie Kmoskova and Joanna Stralka over Nuria Martin Lopez and Gabriela del Val del Toro in the second flight, SRU responded by earning wins from the first and third flights to capture the team doubles point.
 
Slippery Rock earned their lone point of match when its top pairing of Adriana Gonzalez Sanchez and Teddi Isherwood downed Katy Graydon and Karolin Kirchtag – the No. 31 doubles team in the most recent ITA national rankings – with a 6-4 win followed by SRU's rookie tandem of Dari Sakhanova and Tina Slovak also posting a 6-4 victory over a Laura Dunarova and Lydia Vlachou out of the third flight.
 
In their lone season as partners, Gonzalez Sanchez and Isherwood produced a 14-9 record while the freshmen duo of Sakhanova and Slovak started their young careers with a near perfect 18-3 record as a team in 2023.
 
However, SRU was ultimately unable to carry over its doubles momentum into the singles portion of the tournament match as IUP closed out the comeback with four singles wins.
 
Kmoskova first evened the match at 1-1 with a 6-0, 6-1 second flight win against del Val del Toro before Vlachou gave Indiana the lead with a 6-4, 6-2 victory from the fifth flight against Slovak.
 
The match concluded with Crimson Hawk wins in both the sixth and third flights where Dunarova edged Georgie Lancaster 6-0, 7-6 and Stralka defeated Sakhanova in three sets 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
 
Following Stralka's win, the contests in the first and fourth flights were halted. Gonzalez Sanchez and Kirchtag split the opening two sets in the first flight as did Martin Lopez and Graydon out of the fourth slot.
 
Tuesday's match marked the end of the collegiate careers for both del Val del Toro and Gonzalez Sanchez.
 
del Val del Toro leaves Slippery Rock with 105 career victories, the 12th highest win total in program history while Gonzalez Sanchez, the 2021 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division Athlete of the Year, earned 95 career wins.
 
The nationally ranked Crimson Hawks improve to 14-9 on the season and advances to the Round of 16 against a yet to be determined opponent May 12 at the USTA National Campus Collegiate Center in Orlando, Florida.
 
 

 

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