Hall Travels to Navy for Third Tournament of Fall

Oct. 8, 2015

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – The Seton Hall tennis team is back in action this weekend as the Pirates will travel to Annapolis, Md. for a three-day stint at the Navy Blue & Gold Invitational hosted by the United States Naval Academy.

The Hall heads to its third tournament of the fall ready to take on a challenging field that will feature nine other teams including Delaware, George Mason, George Washington, Howard, LIU-Brooklyn, Loyola (MD), Princeton, Stony Brook and hosts Navy.

Five Pirates will be active in singles play with both senior Hannah Liljekvist (Djursholm, Sweden) and sophomore Luize Strike (Riga, Latvia) taking aim at an A flight title. Strike is coming off a trip to West Point in which she advanced to the quarterfinals of the top-flight in singles competition and also previously matched the team-high with three individual wins at the Quinnipiac Invitational.

The sophomore will meet Amanda Studnicki of Delaware in the lower portion of the bracket while Liljekvist will await the winner of Sydney Green (George Mason) and Kindha Nasef (Howard) for her first match of the weekend.

The senior captain made her fall debut last time out at Army and scored a head-to-head win over Karly Pang of Marist.

Freshman Anna Fajnorova (Bratislava, Slovakia) advanced to a singles quarterfinal in just her second collegiate tournament and stands as the Pirates' lone representative in B flight competition this weekend. Fajnorova will meet Delaware's Sarah Hall for the right to advance to the final-eight yet again.

Senior Julia Keenan (Greenland, N.H.) and sophomore Katie Kim (Honolulu, Hawaii) could potentially meet in the C flight championship as the two have been placed on opposite sides of the draw. Keenan, a B flight finalist at Quinnipiac, starts her title push against Allison Hansen of George Washington while Kim has been matched up with Navy's Carlee Conway.

Kim joined Strike and Keenan in scoring three singles wins at the fall opener and came back to add two more and earn a spot in the round of 16 of the 4^th singles bracket at Army.

Turning to the doubles court, Liljekvist and Strike will take on Arielle Shuren and Sara Komer of Delaware while Fajnorova and Keenan have been paired and will meet the Navy duo of Conway/Mackenzie.

Kim will play alongside senior Isabell Klingert (Oberbalbach, Germany), reuniting a team that earned a quarterfinal appearance with two main draw victories at Army. During last season's trip to Annapolis, Kim combined with Madison Shoemaker '15 to take home the crown in the second flight of doubles play.

George Mason's Mina Saygi and Morgan Yang will be the first test for Kim and Klingert this weekend.

Action will begin with doubles on Friday and continue over three days, culminating in championship matches on Sunday.