Bulls Down Undermanned Huskies, 6-1

Miglena Nenova

DeKALB, IL – The University at Buffalo’s women’s tennis team won its fourth straight match as the Bulls downed an undermanned Northern Illinois squad, 6-1, at NIU’s West Campus Tennis Courts. The Bulls are now 12-4 overall and 4-2 in the Mid-American Conference. NIU, losers of 10 consecutive contests, is now 4-17 and 0-6 in MAC play.

UB needed just one doubles victory to claim the opening point as NIU was forced to forfeit the number three match as the Huskies have just four healthy players in the lineup. UB’s number two tandem of Kristen Ortman (Amherst, NY/Amherst) and Miglena Nenova (Rousse, Bulgaria/Eurointellect) easily knocked off NIU’s Megan Brooks and Chrissy Nagel, 8-5, to pick up the point. The number one team of Andreea Novaceanu (Bucharest, Romania/Emil Racovita) and Tina Jacob (Singapore/Raffles JC) fell to Jenny Edner and Dora Delgadillo by an 8-2 margin.

In singles play, the Bulls picked up the second and third points as number five Smaranda Stan (Stantu Gheorghe, Romania/Economic) and Jacob, at number six, won by forfeit. Nenova, playing in the number two slot, picked up a “double-bagel” win over Delgadillo, 6-0, 6-0. Natalie Dean (Feilding, New Zealand/Palmerston North) defeated Brooks in the number three match, 6-1, 6-3. Ortman downed Nagel, 6-0, 6-3, in the number four match.

The lone blemish in the contest was a loss by Novaceanu in the number one match to Edner in straight sets. Novaceanu fell to NIU’s Swedish freshman, 6-2, 7-6, dropping a second-set tiebreaker. The loss snaps Novaceanu’s 11-match unbeaten streak in singles play. The UB sophomore, this week’s MAC Player of the Week, last loss in a singles match was to Syracuse’s Katie Bramante on February 10.

The Bulls close out the regular season with home contests against Miami (OH) and Ball State next weekend.

Buffalo 6, Northern Illinois 1
Doubles
1 Jenny Edner/Dora Delgadillo (NIU) d. Andreea Novaceanu/Tina Jacob (UB), 8-2
2 Kristen Ortman/Miglena Nenova (UB) d. Megan Brooks/Chrissy Nagel (NIU), 8-5
3 Natalie Dean/Katrin Fischer (UB) won by forfeit
Singles
1 Jenny Edner (NIU) d. Andreea Novanceau (UB), 6-2, 7-6
2 Miglena Nenova (UB) d. Dora Delgadillo (NIU), 6-0, 6-0
3 Natalie Dean (UB) d. Megan Brooks (NIU), 6-1, 6-3
4 Kristen Ortman (UB) d. Chrissy Nagel (NIU), 6-0, 6-3
5 Smaranda Stan (UB) won by forfeit
6 Tina Jacob (UB) won by forfeit