Women's Tennis Advances to Little East Championship Match

DARTMOUTH, Mass. -- Third-seeded Bridgewater State University knocked off #2 seed UMass Dartmouth, 5-4, in the semifinal round of the 2017 Little East Conference (LEC) Women's Tennis Tournament on Thursday afternoon at the UMD Tennis Courts.

The defending champion Bears (12-5) will be making their ninth tournament finals appearance since the Little East changed to the current format back in 2008. Bridgewater will take on top-seeded Rhode Island College in the tournament title match on Saturday at noon.

The Bears trailed 2-1 after doubles play but rallied to win four of the six singles flights to take the match.

The senior tandem of Bojana Roman (Somerset, Mass.) and Alison Scagnelli (Sutton, Mass.) gave Bridgewater its' lone doubles point with an 8-5 triumph at the second flight.

Roman cruised to a 6-0, 6-0 straight set victory at second singles to knot the score at 2-2. The two wins on the day, gave Roman 98 for her career between singles and doubles competition.

UMass seemingly regained control of the match as junior Jenna Lahaie (Lakeville, Mass.) posted a 7-6 (7-3), 6-0 decision at the top flight, and sophomore Jaime Fastino (Rehoboth, Mass.) won in straight sets at number four, 6-4, 6-0, to give the Corsairs a 4-2 lead.

BSU freshman Olivia Sweeney (Taunton, Mass.), however, avenged a regular season loss with a 6-3, 6-0 straight set victory at fifth singles. Scagnelli then evened the score at 4-4 with a 6-4, 6-4 straight set win at number three.

The match came down to sixth singles as junior Rachel Tarantino (Mansfield, Mass.) rallied from a set down to clinch the match for the Bears with a 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 win.