ORLANDO, Fla. – Facing a nationally-ranked opponent and another squad from the NCAA Division I ranks in a span of less than 24 hours, the No. 4 ranked Wesleyan women's tennis team showed true resolve, defeating both foes to open the Cardinals' Spring Break Trip in Florida. Wesleyan (6-0) started the day with a 5-2 win over Quinnipiac, losing just two matches out of a possible nine, while the Cardinals dominated Southwestern 9-0 in a continuation of a match that started on Monday morning.
Dating back to the 2018-19 season, Wesleyan has now won 36 consecutive regular season dual matches with 13 of those wins coming against nationally ranked opponents. The two wins recorded on Tuesday come against a Southwestern team that had won seven straight matches to open this season while the Bobcats are perennial powers in the MAAC at the NCAA D1 level, having won the conference title and earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament field six times in the last nine seasons.
No. 4 Wesleyan 5, Quinnipiac 2
Shifting to NCAA D1 scoring for this match, this meant that the team who won at least two of the three doubles matches would only take one point in the team scoring. Therefore, Wesleyan's sweep of all three doubles matches took what would be a 3-0 lead and only made it 1-0 entering singles play. The Cardinals' strong start saw
Nika Vesely '25 and
Caitlyn Ferrante '23 combine for a 6-2 win at #2 before
Renna Mohsen-Breen '25 and
Sarah Youngberg '26 landed a 6-4 win at #3 to secure the doubles point. For good measure,
Sasha Gaeth '23 and
Kristina Yu '22 secured a clean doubles sweep with a 7-5 win at #1.
Moving on to singles play, the bottom of the lineup made easy work of their respective matches at #5 and #6. Mohsen-Breen landed her second win of the day, defeating Nikole Lisovyy 6-0, 6-3 at #5 while
Serim Jin '23 took down Mira Filiberti 6-0, 6-3 at #6 to move the Cardinals just one point away from securing the match victory.
Quinnipiac scored their first point of the match with a win at #3 singles but the match was decided at #4 with Youngberg taking down Jordan Bradley 6-2, 2-6, 6-0 in a back-and-forth dual to put the Cardinals ahead 4-1.
Vesely scored her second win of the match, coming back from an opening set defeat to triumph over Claire Koscielski 4-6, 6-2, 12-10.
No. 4 Wesleyan 9, No. 18 Southwestern 0
In this 36-match regular season win streak for the Cardinals, prior to this result, just one of those 36 wins have been a 9-0 decision against a ranked opponent. Wesleyan made quick work of the Pirates, starting on Morning morning with doubles play that saw the Cardinals surrender just six total games in the three matches combined. Gaeth and Yu won 8-2 at #1,
Leila Epstein '26 and Ferrante combined for a 8-4 victory at #2, and Mohsen-Breen and Youngberg swept their match at #3.
Singles play saw the Cardinals win in straight sets on five of the six courts. Play was halted on Monday and continued Tuesday afternoon with several of the matches already in the second set. Vesely (#1), Ferrante (#3), Yu (#4), Youngberg (#5), and Mohsen-Breen (#6) all won in straight sets while each allowed their opponent to win five games or fewer, combined in the two sets.
Epstein made it a clean sweep for the Cardinals as the freshman rebounded from an opening set loss to topple Emma Kesterson 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 at #2.
Wesleyan continues their Spring Break Trip on Wednesday morning with a matchup against Kenyon at the USTA National Campus in Orlando at 11 AM.
