Pitt takes 2 of 3 on the road

By Pitt News Staff

Carlie Smith might’ve moved into second place on Pitt’s all-time combined win list over the… Carlie Smith might’ve moved into second place on Pitt’s all-time combined win list over the weekend, but the one number she kept seeing after the tennis team’s first two games was zero.

A lot of zeroes.

Against Villanova, Smith defeated Jaclyn Williamson, 6-1, 6-0, in her singles match, and with Leah Freidman she shutout Carla Erksine and Emily Urda, 8-0.

Then against Seton Hall, Smith didn’t lose so much as a game, defeating Liza Chu, 6-0, 6-0, and then with Freidman beating Chu and Danielle Viola, 8-0.

The Panthers (9-7, 5-2 Big East) defeated both Villanova and Seton Hall, 7-0, before losing to Rutgers, 5-2, on Sunday to snap their six-match winning streak.

Pitt is done with regular-season Big East play but will still face Bucknell this Friday and Duquesne April 9 before traveling to Tampa, Fla., for the Big East Championships.

Pitt 7, Villanova 0

Kristy Borza, the all-time career-wins leader at Pitt, won her match, 6-2, 6-1, over Erksine, Villanova’s No. 1 singles player.

Sophomore Sabrina Visram won the No. 2 singles match, 6-1, 6-5, over Urda.

Although freshman Elizabeth Adams lost her first two games, she bounced back and won the next 12. Adams won the No. 3 singles match, 6-2, 6-0, over Courtney Reed.

Christie D’Achille kept the shutout going with her 6-3, 6-3 win in the No. 4 singles match over Daniella Phillis.

Smith won the No. 5 singles match over Williamson, and in the final singles match of the day, Friedman beat Ashley Reed, 6-2, 6-1.

Borza and Adams won the No. 1 doubles match, 8-3, while Visram and D’Achille bounced back from a doubles loss against Carnegie Mellon last match with an 8-6 win.

In the final doubles match, Smith and Friedman won, 8-0. It was the 58th doubles win in Friedman’s career, which places her two shy of the third most in Pitt history.

Pitt 7, Seton Hall 0

Borza won two more matches against the Pirates.

In the No. 1 singles match, she won, 6-2, 6-4 (4), 10-8, over Denise Liebschner, and in the top doubles match, she and Adams won, 8-4, over Liebschner and Nadezhda Shein.

Adams also won her singles match, 6-1, 6-1, over Amanda El-Tobgy.

Visram and D’Achille both won their singles and doubles matches.

In the No. 2 singles match, Visram beat Shein, 6-2, 7-6 (5), and D’Achille defeated Nathalie Ranger, 6-0, 6-1, in the No. 4 singles match.

In their doubles match, Visram and D’Achille beat El-Tobgy and Slavina Kaplonska, 8-5.

Smith and Friedman once again completed the shutout with a shutout of their own, beating Chu and Viola, 8-0.

Rutgers 5, Pitt 2

Although the Panthers only managed to win three matches in their last Big East match of the season, Adams came out on the winning end of both of her matches and all six matches she played over the weekend.

The freshman beat Katherine Arlak, 6-2, 3-6, 10-5, in the No. 3 singles match, and along with Borza, she beat Katrina Elder-Bush and Arlak, 8-3, in the No. 1 doubles match.

Although she dropped the doubles match, Elder-Bush bested Borza in their singles match, 6-2, 6-1.

Visram and D’Achille both lost in their singles matches, as well as their doubles match.

Amy Zhang defeated Visram, 6-0, 7-5, in their match, and D’Achille won her first set before dropping the last two against Caitlin Baker in her 4-6, 6-4, 10-4 loss.

The two were beat by Polina Zaretser and Christine Tran in their doubles match.

Smith beat Tran in the No. 5 singles match, 7-6 (2), 6-4, but she lost her doubles match with Friedman to Zhang and Baker.