Tennis Opens BIG EAST Stretch with 'Nova Sun.
3/21/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - The Seton Hall tennis team returns home on Sunday, opening a stretch of three consecutive BIG EAST matches by hosting rival Villanova.
The Hall (4-7, 0-1 BIG EAST) fell in its conference opener in a one-point decision against Georgetown but is coming off a dominant 9-0 victory over Vanguard that closed a spring break trip to San Diego in which the team out-scored its opponents, 17-10, over three matches.
Four Pirates posted multiple singles victories over the three-match swing as junior Hannah Liljekvist (Djursholm, Sweden) and senior Anna Guryanova (Moscow, Russia) provided strength at opposite ends of the lineup while Isabell Klingert (Oberbalbach, Germany) and Madison Shoemaker (Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia) each added a pair of wins as well.
An All-BIG EAST honoree as a sophomore who has already been tabbed as the conference's Player of the Week this spring, Liljekvist continued to excel from the top position for SHU, moving to 8-4 in dual match action with point-scoring efforts against Cal State-Los Angeles and Vanguard.
Liljekvist also went into the trip coming off a victory at #1 over Georgetown's Victoire Saperstein - a match that featured two more individual wins for the Pirates as Klingert and classmate Julia Keenan (Greenland, N.H.) got on the board as well.
Despite dropping her first match of the spring in the opener against Cal State-LA, Klingert rebounded to take her final two matches in the Golden State and heads into Sunday with a 12-1 record in 2015 and 9-2 dual match ledger in her first season in blue & white. The Gonzaga transfer has accumulated three wins at the fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively, greatly improving Seton Hall's strength throughout the entire lineup.
No Pirate posted more than three wins at #6 last season and the Pirates were 19-22 between the fifth and sixth spots overall.
The senior Guryanova has added to the resurgence in the second half of the lineup with straight set wins in all four of her appearances at #6 this spring, two of which came during the trip to the bay area.
The Moscow native is now 14-4 (.778) in a dual match setting for her career and 38-19 (.667) as an individual in all competitions.
Shoemaker has also returned to form of late while playing a similar role, recording four wins in her last six outings. In 2013-14, Shoemaker, Liljekvist and Keenan all contributed multiple victories against league opponents for a squad that posted wins against Providence and Villanova and came within a single point of two more BIG EAST victories in the regular season.
SHU closed the season by blanking Butler in the consolation round of the conference tournament.
Following the graduation of senior leaders Chloe Sher and Rocio Portela, The Hall welcomed a trio of freshmen that have stepped in and assumed integral roles.
Given the absence of fellow newcomer Luize Strike (Riga, Latvia) who has missed the last seven matches, freshmen Katie Kim (Honolulu, Hawaii) and Marisa Quevedo (Tyler, Texas) have been asked to occupy the second and third positions and each broke through in a major way last time out against Vanguard.
Kim breezed past Ashley Wao-Udin (#3) while Quevedo dominated Gabriele Alford (#2) and the pair of rookies yielded a total of three games in the two victories.
Kim and Shoemaker have been a doubles force at #2 for head coach Greg Wyzykowski as well and the Pirates as a whole have bounced back from their early season struggles to record 11 wins on the doubles court over the last six outings.
Liljekvist, Keenan, Guryanova and Shoemaker all contributed to a Seton Hall sweep in doubles competition as The Hall scored a 5-2 road win over VU last spring. Overall, the Pirates' last three triumphs over Villanova have come by an aggregate score of 16-to-5 and the Wildcats brought a 2-8 record into the weekend. `Nova was bested by five points in its only previous conference match against St. John's (3/17) and will be facing a quick turnaround after taking on Lehigh on Saturday morning.
A seventh consecutive win in the series could help the Pirates build momentum with a meeting against the 8-4 Xavier Musketeers on the horizon as the two teams are set to meet on Friday, March 27; marking the first encounter between the two programs since XU bounced The Hall from the 2014 BIG EAST Tournament.
SHU will be keen on taking care of business against the Wildcats first however as Sunday's showdown will have seeding implication for this year's edition of the conference championship.
Start-time is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. and the site has been moved to the NJIT tennis courts in Newark, N.J.
