Ashley Spicer had already wrapped up her singles match, but she didn’t step off the court. Instead, she turned to her right to cheer on her teammate, who was battling back in a match of her own.

By that point, the match had already been decided. Spicer made sure of that. So when she was finished playing, she could sit back, relax and watch the end of the match in peace.

Spicer’s strong performance led Syracuse to a 5-2 victory over Buffalo Friday afternoon at Drumlins Tennis Center in front of 74 fans. The SU junior dominated the No. 4 singles and No. 2 doubles, ensuring the Orange victory. Syracuse (6-0, 2-0 Big East) is off to its best start since the 1978-79 season, when it finished 10-0.

‘This is a huge win for us to turn around in a year,’ Spicer said. ‘It shows how hard we’ve been working and how much we’ve improved.’

It was clear quickly that Friday was Spicer’s day. At the No. 2 doubles, she and fellow junior Chelsea Jones took down the Buffalo duo of Aleksandra Petrova and Diana Toia, 8-3, with strong serves from Jones and quality returns from Spicer. In singles play, Spicer made quick work of Toia, dispatching her, 6-0, 6-3.

‘For us in doubles, we get out to fast starts and we just play with a lot of energy,’ Spicer said. ‘We were executing really well today, and that for me carried over into my singles match, and I was just able to do what I wanted to do out there.’

The rest of the matches were not quite so easy. Though Spicer was able to quickly dispense her opponents, her teammates had to work hard for their points.

Both Jones and freshman Emily Harman were pushed into tiebreakers during their singles matches. Harman, who was undefeated in singles play coming into Friday’s match, lost a tight match to Buffalo’s Denise Harijanto in the No. 1 spot.

Harman was down 3-0 in the second set before capitalizing on some poor serves by Harijanto to win four straight points. The freshman found ways to win points in a close match, including a backhand in which she left her feet and dropped the ball onto the other side of the net. Her toughness was not enough, though, as she lost the tiebreaker, 12-10.

In the other tiebreaker match, Jones dropped her first set to Anna Subenkova before rallying to win the second set and dominating the tiebreaker, 10-3.

‘This is one where you circle the calendar,’ SU head coach Luke Jensen said. ‘This is a New York State rivalry. It’s another stepping stone in the right direction for this team.’

Syracuse played one of its closest matches of the year against Buffalo, and Jensen said it will be important for his players to improve as the season continues.

‘We have yet to play our very best tennis as a team,’ Jensen said. ‘We’re playing in spots and we keep winning, and that shows that we have the elements of really putting it together. I’m excited because I think closer and closer each player is getting more motivated to get better and better.’

Jensen said improving his team’s speed will be a point of emphasis throughout the week. He also said reducing the number of errors will be important, though he added that area of his team’s play is much improved from the past two seasons.

‘We want to end the season undefeated,’ Spicer said. ‘We started out saying we’re not going to lose a match this season, and I think that’s really going to be our motivation going into next week.’

azmeola@syr.edu

Published on February 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm