Women's Tennis Awarded NEAC All-Conference Honors
NEAC INDIVIDUAL TOURNAMENT RESULTS
NEAC ALL-CONFERENCE RELEASE (PDF)
CLARKS SUMMIT, Pa. – The Wells College women's tennis team concluded its season at the North Eastern Athletic Conference West Division Individual Tournament, starting play on Thursday with the doubles tournament and finishing with singles action on Friday.
Wells, who wrapped up the team portion of its schedule with a 6-7 record after a postseason loss to Penn St.-Berks on Thursday, netted six NEAC All-Conference selections throughout the league's individual tournament. In total, Penn St.-Abington earned the NEAC individual championships in all but No. 5 and No. 6 singles.
Senior Brooke Benedetto (Williamstown, N.Y.), the conference's top-seeded player at No. 1 singles, competed against Lancaster Bible's Morgan Adams in a first round match. Cruising to a 6-1 victory in the first set, Benedetto found herself saddled with a 6-4 loss as Adams battled back to force a third-set tiebreaker. Benedetto persevered, winning the decisive set by a 14-12 margin.
In the championship, Benedetto ran into the second-seeded Honora Hegarty from Penn St.-Abington. Having dispatched Hegarty by a 6-4, 6-2 margin during the regular season, Benedetto jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first set before her Nittany Lions counterpart battled back to take the opening set by a 6-4 score. Hegarty would go on to win NEAC Player of the Year honors with a 6-1 score in the second set, clinching the match.
Benedetto, who earned Second Team All-Conference recognition with the result, finished her season with a 12-2 record at No. 1 singles. She also reached 30 career singles victories across her four-year career, tying with Caitlyn Copfer '13 for the program's NCAA Division III-era record. Additionally, she finishes her career with a .667 winning percentage (30-15) that stands sixth all-time (min. 12 victories).
Despite losing at No. 1 doubles with her partner Yuna Furusawa (Hirakata, Osaka, Japan), she finished her career with a 30-27 overall record. Her 30 wins stands as the program's all-time mark, having passed Antoinette Ptak '84 with her 29th career win on Apr. 20 against Keuka. She also wraps up her career with NEAC individual championships at No. 2 singles, No. 4 singles and No. 1 doubles.
The duo of senior Kevisha Hunt (Germantown, Md.) and junior Nicole Sanborn (Onondaga, N.Y.) earned NEAC Third Team All-Conference in No. 2 doubles, losing its first round match before earning a forfeit victory in the consolation match. Junior Kate Wells (Gardner, Mass.) and sophomore Kamarie Maturine (Brooklyn, N.Y.) posted a first-round loss of 8-0, but rallied for an 8-3 win against Keuka to pick up Third Team All-NEAC merits.
Hunt also earned Second Team All-Conference honors, defeating Penn St.-Berks' Tanya White with a 6-4, 6-3 match at No. 3 singles. Hunt would eventually fall to Gabrielle Eberhardt in the title match, 6-1, 6-0, and end her senior season with an impressive 10-4 mark in singles action.
For her career, Hunt has racked up 19 singles victories alongside 16 wins in doubles play. As a senior, she recorded a 7-2 record at No. 3 singles and picked up two additional wins at No. 2 singles near the midpoint of the season. Hunt earned Third Team All-NEAC recognition as a sophomore at No. 5 singles.
Maturine represented the Express at No. 2 singles, falling by a 6-1, 6-1 score in the first round before powering past Penn College's Carolyn Krasley in a 9-7 thriller to collect Third Team All-Conference merits. Kate Wells joined Maturine on the Third Team, rebounding from a first round loss by edging Keuka's Katie Tracy with a 6-1, 6-3 decision at No. 6 singles.
Kianna Anderson of Penn St.-Berks was selected as the NEAC Rookie of the Year while David Sheaffer, the Head Coach of Penn St.-Abington, was named the league's Coach of the Year after piloting the Nittany Lions to an impressive 13-4 record while coaching 12 All-Conference selections.
