BEVERLY, Mass. – This Friday both UMass Boston Women's Tennis and Endicott College will head to the NCAA Tournament in their respective pods, but on Tuesday evening, the two sides met for one final match prior to the start of the tournament. Despite close finishes in several matchups, the Beacons would ultimately be swept by the Gulls, 9-0, dropping their second consecutive match.  
 
THE BASICS
 
UMass Boston 0, Endicott College 9
 
UMass Boston (12-3)
Endicott College (13-7)
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
It was an all-sophomore matchup in the #1 Doubles as Lejla Guster and Ripley Uyeda squared off with Ayonna Stuppard and Elena Albano, fighting to get by the Beacons' duo with an 8-5 victory. For the second time this spring, juniors Lydia Chan and Skylar Robles teamed up in the #2 Doubles but fell for the first time as a duo, losing 8-6 against sophomore Olivia Martinelli and senior Ashley Keaveney, 8-6.

Returning to her first match of the spring and first match as a duo with freshman Shereya Saravana, senior Lia Vassiliadis and Saravana dropped their #3 Doubles matchup with senior Olivia Berler and junior Kaitlin Fitzgibbons, 8-0, giving the Gulls a 3-0 team lead after the doubles.

But the Beacons would continue to fight in the singles with two matches needing tiebreaker sets to decide a winner. In the #1 Singles, Chan and Guster went toe-to-toe in set one which went to the Gulls, 7-6, before Guster defeated Chan 6-2 in the second set for the victory.

The other tiebreaker would be between Vassiliadis and Fitzgibbons in the #6 Singles who each split the first two sets by scores of 6-3 before going to a marathon third set which saw Fitzgibbons come out on top by a final score of 19-17 to break the tie.

Across the #2 through #5 Singles, Martinelli would take down Albano in straight 6-2 sets, Stuppard fell to Uyeda 6-1 and 6-0, Berler defeated Rakshana in two sets that went 6-0, and junior Shelby Henry beat Robles 6-1 and 6-0 to complete the sweep for Endicott College.
 
BY THE NUMBERS

• UMass Boston is now 0-2 all-time against Endicott College, losing both matches by a score of 9-0
• Lia Vassiliadis and Shreya Saravana teamed up for the first time this spring in the #3 Doubles
• This is the first time this season in which UMass Boston has lost two straight matches

 
WHO'S NEXT
UMass Boston heads to MIT's campus for the first round of the NCAA Tournament this Friday at noon against Colby-Sawyer College on the DuPont Tennis Courts or 10:00 AM inside the J.B. Carr Tennis Bubble should weather not cooperate.