By Faraz T. Toor
Published October 21, 2014
In front of the home fans on the Roosevelt Courts, seniors Yuliya Orkis and Rosalia Xue and junior Suraya Maenhout were honored with gifts in their final home matches of their Brooklyn College careers.
They returned the admiration by sending the Brooklyn College Women’s Tennis team into the CUNYAC Semifinal.
Orkis, Maenhout, and Xue swept through their singles matches, as the Lady Bulldogs defeated Lehman College on Sunday, 5-1, in their the City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) Quarterfinal match.
Orkis and Maenhout got things started in dominating fashion in the #1 doubles match. The tag team of BC (7-3) captains all but swept Lynessa George and KantomalalaRasedoara of Lehman College (3-8) and took the set 8-1.
Orkis then completely took care of #1 singles, 6-0, 6-0, against George.
In the #3 singles, Xue swept her Lightning opponent Natalie Carrasquilo, 6-0, 6-0.
Anastasia Volovik and Love Olufemi went deep into the #3 doubles. Katherine Otero and Elizaveta Ostanina nearly took the first-year BC players to the brink before the Brooklyn pair won the match, 9-7.
In the #2 singles, which finished after Volovik’s and Olufemi’s wins, Orkis’s fellow captain Maenhout was nearly perfect against Rasedoara, defeating her 6-2, 6-0 to secure the Lady Bulldogs’ Semifinal berth.
The Lightning won a competitive #2 doubles against Xue and Lauren Marino.Carrasquilo and Taylor-Marie Soriano defeated the home pair, 8-6.
The #3-seeded Brooklyn faced the #6-seeded Lehman four days before the playoff match, in their last regular season match of the fall season; the Lady Bulldogs won that contest, 7-1.
Sunday’s victory was BC’s sixth at home in seven chances. Hunter College handed Brooklyn its lone home loss this season, 6-3, two weeks ago. Brooklyn has won three straight matches since that loss.
In the 2013 CUNYAC Championships, the Lady Bulldogs beat John Jay College by the same 5-1 score line in the Quarterfinal Round.
BC has won its last four CUNYAC Quarterfinal matches. Their last loss in the first round was in 2010 when York College defeated them, 5-4.
Brooklyn College will face the #2-seeded College of Staten Island (CSI) in the CUNYAC Semifinal at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens on Wednesday. The Dolphins beat York College in their Quarterfinal match Sunday, 5-4.
CSI beat the Lady Bulldogs last year in a classic 5-4 CUNYAC Final, and defeated BC, 7-2, in September on Staten Island.
