Box Score Oneonta, NY – The SUNY Oneonta women's tennis team won today's "Battle of the Red Dragons" shutting out SUNY Cortland 9-0.  This win for Oneonta is the third shutout in row and keeps them undefeated on the season moving them to 8-0.  On an unseasonably hot late September afternoon on the Joe Heissan Tennis courts on the campus of SUNY Oneonta the women's tennis team played their only home match of the fall and did not disappoint the unusually large crowd for a women's tennis match. 

Doubles play began with the number one duo of freshman Julieta Eulau (Oceanside/Oceanside) and junior Alyssa Brault (Rochester/Churchville-Chili) playing clean tennis both from the baseline and the net withstood an early scare but quickly pulled away to an 8-2 victory.  Captain and senior Samantha Felice (Seneca Falls/Mynderse Academy) playing her final home game of the championship fall season joined up with her usual partner Mya Lipscomb (Peekskill/Walter Panas) in the second flight and were down early in their match 2-1 but ran off the next eight of nine games cruising to an 8-3 triumph.  Freshman Emma Messenger (Marlboro/Marlboro) and partner sophomore Danielle Swierczyna (Hamilton, NJ/Steinert) also got down early in their match but quickly recouped to an 8-3 conquest of Cortland's third doubles team.

A commanding 3-0 lead going into the singles stanza brought about dominant play from the Oneonta women.  Brault found herself in a tough battle but won the big points when needed and earned a straight set win 6-3, 6-2 at the number one position.  Eulau also has been very successful as a freshman in the second position.  Today her junior and more experienced Cortland foe tried a variety of strategies to throw Eulau off her game.  Eualu was poised and disciplined and never let the occasion get to her and got the break in the first set when needed and never had any trouble in the second set going on to a 6-4, 6-2 win.  Third singles saw junior Michelle Halpern (Rye Brook/Blind Brook) fighting through some ankle sprains playing a tight first set but gained control of the match late in that set and then never let the hammer off her opponent winning in straights 6-3, 6-0.  At fourth singles Lipscomb held to form in the first set earning a win 6-1 and then her opponent retired giving the Oneonta player another win.  Felice at fifth singles coming off a strenuous win on Sunday started off slow and played a tight first set winning it 7-5 and then gained total control winning the second set 6-1.  Swiercyzna filling in for Messenger today in the sixth position and stepped up and also was dominant earning a 6-2, 6-2 win.

In the alternate role freshmen Dorothy Zeisler (Davenport/Charlotte Valley) and Gianna Papini (Helwett/George W. Hewlett) played at fourth doubles and won easily 6-3 and they remain undefeated in that position.

So the SUNY Oneonta Red Dragons stay undefeated and now have to take on another SUNYAC foe on Friday, September 29th when the Red Dragons travel to Brockport and play the Golden Eagles on the campus of SUNY Brockport beginning at 4 PM.