Thursday, March 15, 2012

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (March 15, 2012) – The ETSU women’s tennis team will serve up the conference season this weekend when it travels to Jacksonville, Fla., for a double dose of Atlantic Sun action against Jacksonville and North Florida.

The Bucs will start the weekend at the Keith Watson Family Tennis Complex to take on Jacksonville on Friday, before heading to the UNF Tennis Complex for a meeting with North Florida on Saturday. The scheduled start time for both matches is at 2 p.m.

ETSU (3-6) got off on the wrong foot in last year’s conference opener in Jacksonville, falling 4-3 to UNF. The Bucs did; however, come back to defeat JU 5-2 the following day to walk away with a weekend split, and did not lose a conference game the rest of the year on its way to a 9-1 conference mark and winning both the regular season and conference tournament championships.

Last weekend, ETSU hit the road riding a two-match winning streak after defeating both Liberty and Western Carolina in its on-campus home openers at the Buddy Hartsell Tennis Center. ETSU’s first stop was in Huntington, W. Va., to take on Marshall where the Bucs started the day by grabbing the doubles point, but failed to win any of the six singles matches in a 6-1 Marshall victory. Two days later, the Bucs met in Winston-Salem, N.C., with Wake Forest and dropped to 0-6 on the road with after suffering a 5-2 loss.

Senior Paula Jaime (Madrid, Spain) and freshman Jessica Brumit (Elizabethton, Tenn.) continue to lead ETSU from a singles standpoint. Jaime leads the team in wins holding a 16-8 overall record while going 4-5 so far this spring. Brumit is 12-7 overall and is the only Buccaneer to have a winning singles record in spring play, holding a 5-4 mark.

Jacksonville (3-7) is in the midst of a four-match losing streak. The Dolphins were an even 3-3 on the year before dropping four-consecutive matches at home to Campbell, Eastern Kentucky, Troy State and Appalachian State. Sunday’s outing against Troy State ended in a 7-0 sweep; the Dolphins’ first on the losing end this season. 

North Florida (4-4) is coming off a 5-2 loss to Georgia State. Prior to that, the Ospreys had won two in a row in home matches against Eastern Kentucky and Troy. UNF took care of EKU 6-1 last Thursday before sweeping Troy 7-0 on Saturday.

Melanie Aguirre and Lorena Aviles are swinging a hot racquet for the Ospreys as both have won each of their last three singles matches. Aguirre is 3-2 through the spring season rotating through the No. 4, 5 and 6 singles positions, while Aviles is 5-2 having gone 4-1 at the No. 2 spot and 1-1 at the No. 1.                                                                                                                                                     

For more information on ETSU tennis please visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the tennis links.