Northern Colorado Finishes First Day at Wyoming Invitational

Sept. 15, 2007

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Laramie, Wyoming- The Northern Colorado women's tennis team completed its first day of competition at the Wyoming Invitational on Friday, Sept. 14. The Bears finished 6-5 in singles and 3-1 in doubles on a rain-shortened first day.

The tournament consists of three flights of singles (gold, brown and white) and a pair of flights in doubles (gold and brown). There are a total of five other teams in the tournament besides Northern Colorado (Air Force, Colorado State, Montana State, Weber State and Wyoming).

"I thought it was a very successful first day of the fall season," said head coach Brenda Vlasak. "We had many positive notes. In singles play, we had our top two players (Tabatha Knop and Manuela Santos) reach the semifinals. Every person on the team won at least one match on the day, it was great to see the entire team making such a large contribution this early in the season."

In the gold singles flight, Tabatha Knop defeated Inalise Pienaar (Weber State), 6-1, 6-1 in the first round, then she defeated Lauren Wilson (Air Force), 6-2, 6-2 to advance to the Saturday's semifinals match against Corina Lazar (Wyoming). Her sister Tiffany Knop earned a hard-fought three-game win (6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (5)) over Ashley Schapper (Weber State) before falling to Stephanie Jasper (Colorado State), 6-2, 6-2. Karen Groll fell to Nuria Hernandez (Montana State), 6-0, 6-1 in the first round and Christine Abayan (Air Force) in the backdraw, 6-2, 6-0.

In the brown singles flight, Manuela Santos advanced to the Saturday's semifinals with victories over Erlyn Rudico (Air Force), 7-6 (3), 6-3 and Rebecca Berger (Wyoming), 6-2, 6-4. Natalia Agarycheva fell to Jamie Nelson (Wyoming) 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 in the first round; she will complete in the second round backdraw against Keya Adamson (Weber State).

In the white singles flight, Jodi Ciarvella downed Erika Shortridge (Air Force) 6-4 0-6, 7-6 (3) and will compete against Wyoming's Michelle Brown in Saturday's draw. Luiza Xavier fell to Montana State's Ali Griffin, 6-1, 6-2. Xavier then received a bye into the second round's backdraw and awaits the winner of the Maner Al-Jazzaf and Alyssia Payne match for the third round.

The gold doubles flight was Northern Colorado's best effort as Tabatha Knop and Santos defeated Hernandez/Jasper, 8-2, in the first round and will compete against Piennar/Venditto (Weber State) in the second round. Tiffany Knop and Groll won their opening match, 8-4, over Berger/Van Hollen (Wyoming) and compete against Fey/Propietti (Montana State) in the second round.

In the brown doubles flight, the mixed doubles team of Sarkis (Air Force)/Xavier fell in their opening appearance, 8-4, and will compete in the backdraw on Saturday. Agarycheva/Ciarvella won their opening round and they take on the host school's team of Chaix/Nelson in the second round of the maindraw.

Play resumes Saturday morning at 9 a.m.