Senior Maddie Kobelt cemented herself in the Syracuse history books over the weekend by becoming the 30th player in program history to earn 100 career wins. But the historical benchmark was overshadowed as her team lost to Maryland following five hours of competition.

The Orange (4-11, 4-6 Atlantic Coast) cruised to an easy 6-1 victory over Pittsburgh (4-11, 0-11), but SU was unable to win two straight after losing 4-3 to Maryland (6-10, 2-8).

On Friday, junior Amanda Rodgers got the momentum going for Syracuse by defeating Pittsburgh’s Taylor Washington 6-3, 6-3.

The Orange kept up the pace by sweeping the remaining singles matches, with five of them taking only two sets to complete. It marked the first road victory for SU all season, and its fourth win in the ACC.

Kobelt then completed the sweep in singles for Syracuse by defeating Blakely 6-7 (4-7), 6-3, 7-6 (7-3).

Unfortunately for Syracuse, the team came up just short of winning its second road match when it lost to Maryland on Sunday. The Terrapins imposed their will at home against the Orange.

Maddie Kobelt and Valeria Salazar, the top doubles pairing for SU, lost 8-6 to Nataliya Bredikhina and Welma Luus. Olivia Gaudreault and Alexandra Stanova won in convincing fashion by earning an 8-3 win over SU’s Maria Avgerinos and Rhiann Newborn.

While the Orange provided a much better fight in its singles matches, it was unable to bounce back from the loss of the doubles point.

After earning her monumental win two days prior, Kobelt lost in two sets, 6-3, 6-2 to Stanova. Syracuse did not immediately back down, as Newborn, Valeria Salazar and Komal Safdar won the next three singles matches to keep the Orange within distance of a victory.

However, Rodgers was unable to earn the win in her singles match, losing to Nataliya Bredikhina 6-4, 6-7 (7-9), 6-1. Avgerinos was the team’s last hope but was unable to earn the hard-fought victory, losing to Olga Bredikhina 6-7 (8-10), 6-3, 6-3.

Syracuse will regroup before traveling next weekend to face Clemson and Notre Dame for its final road matches of the regular season.

compiled by Matt Miselis, staff writer, mjmiseli@syr.edu

Published on April 7, 2014 at 12:49 am