Lightning's Hopes Dashed in Close Loss to Brooklyn

Two times in the past eight days women's tennis Coach Zack Davis has seen his girls on the precipice of victory with two singles matches left to play.

Two times Lehman has fallen narrowly in defeat, the latest coming on Monday afternoon against host Brooklyn College.

The Lightning looked to be on their way to improving their conference record to an impressive 7-2 after taking two of three doubles matches from the Bulldogs as Ravnit Bhatia and Natalee Smith upended Liana Rivkin and Diana Rafailova, 8-4, and Dalia Rodriguez and Ashley Cox downed Hadiya Cameron and Jacqueline Szpunt, 8-2. Helping to avoid the doubles sweep for Brooklyn were Maria Sanz and Diana Derks, who beat Daraliz Collado and Alexandria Reel 8-1.

But when play turned to singles, Brooklyn gained the upper hand, albeit just barely. Norma Chabbott handled Krystina Nguyen 6-0, 6-2; Rafailova topped Cox 6-3, 6-2; and Gianna Gelosi stopped Rodriguez 6-1, 6-2. Collado continued her run of undefeated play for the week by beating Diana Derks 6-3, 6-2 to set up the deciding two matches.

With Bhatia in the midst of beating Rivkin 7-5, 6-3, Smith waged a battle with the hard-serving Sanz as the match outcome hung in the balance. After a hard luck first set loss, 7-6, Smith competed to the fullest only to come up just short in the deciding set, 7-5.

The CUNYAC portion of their schedule complete, Lehman finishes regular season play on Friday with a home match against St. Joseph's College of Long Island at 3:30 p.m.

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