BUCKHANNON, W. Va. – The No. 45 Slippery Rock University women's tennis team captured a 5-2 road victory Sunday against No. 47 West Virginia Wesleyan College at the Wood Street Courts in Buchannon, West Virginia.
 
Slippery Rock's latest win improves its record to 11-3 overall while West Virginia Wesleyan falls to 13-6 following the loss. Sunday's match marked The Rock's second straight road victory over a nationally ranked team: SRU also downed No. 23 Charleston, 7-0, to start its weekend trip around West Virginia.
 
Much like its win over Charleston, The Rock's victory against West Virginia Wesleyan should further solidify their position as one of the top teams in the Atlantic Region when the Division II Women's Tennis Committee releases their next set of regional rankings Wednesday.
 
The upcoming regional rankings will be the first ordered rankings released by the committee this season. SRU and West Virginia Wesleyan were both among the nine teams listed in the first batch of rankings released last week that only listed the top nine teams by alphabetical order.
 
The NCAA regional rankings determine the participants for the NCAA Tournament. The Atlantic Region consists of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC), the Mountain East Conference (MEC), the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) and select independent institutions within the region's borders.
 
All three conference tournament champions within the region receive an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament with the next four highest ranked teams in the final regional rankings receiving at-large bids.
 
In similar fashion to the Charleston win, Slippery Rock once again took the team doubles point from West Virginia Wesleyan thanks to triumphs out of the second and third flight.
 
Winners in 16 of its 20 matches as a team this year, Amaia Balaguer Brau and Tina Slovak bested Bergmann and Andrea Garrido in 6-1 fashion. Meanwhile, Nadia Rodewald and Dari Sakhanova lifted their record to a stellar 19-2 by way of a 6-3 third-flight victory against Yuko Sakurai and Sneha Sundaraneedi.
 
The lone setback in the doubles portion of the match for Slippery Rock came in the top flight where the 33rd-ranked pairing of Nicole Kempton and Alissia Kivi dropped a narrow 7-6 decision to Renata Pozzobon and Dominique van Vuuren.
 
While West Virginia Wesleyan would earn two singles points out of the fourth and fifth singles flights to avoid the shutout, SRU captured convincing wins from the other four flights en route to the team victory.
 
The top half of The Rock's singles lineup rolled to wins as Balaguer Brau beat van Vuuren (6-1, 6-1), Kivi downed Daria Godlewska (6-3, 6-0) and Kempton got the better of Pozzobon (6-2, 6-1).
 
Kivi's win puts her as the first Rock athlete to 20 victories this season on a .833 winning percentage (20-4). Balaguer Brau and Kempton have both won two consecutive matches, improving their respective season records to 17-7 and 16-6.
 
From the sixth flight, Rodewald rattled off her 11th consecutive singles win after she defeated Bergmann 6-1, 6-0. In addition to forming one half of a doubles team that's already won 19 matches, Rodewald singles winning streak has improved her individual record to 16-6.
 
The Bobcats' wins came from Sakurai over Slovak in the fourth flight and Sundaraneedi against Sakhanova from the fifth flight.
 
Slippery Rock closes the regular season when it hosts California (Pa.) on Senior Day 4 p.m. April 22 at the SRU Tennis Courts.





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