Three Bison athletes advanced to the winner’s bracket Sept. 18-19 when the women’s tennis team hosted the Bucknell Invite against Marist and Villanova. Michele Urbinati ’17, Lauren Fishbein ’19, and Madeline Melch ’18 were all in the semifinals.

Melch proceeded to the championship round of Flight B after she beat her Marist opponent with a 6-2, 6-1 victory. She eventually fell to her opponent from Villanova in the finals, putting her singles record at 2-2 for this fall season.

Both Urbinati and Fishbein fell in the semi-finals. Urbinati was trounced by her opponent from Marist, who went on to win the bracket, and Fishbein was defeated by her Villanova opponent.

Teammates Maria Cioffi ’16 and Lisa Jouravleva ’18 faced off against each other once again this weekend. Cioffi defeated her Marist opponent while Jouravleva beat her Villanova opponent to lead each other into their second face-off in two straight weeks. Cioffi fought a difficult three-set match against Jouravleva to win the consolation draw.

“Obviously no one wants to play their own teammate because when it’s all said and done, you both want to win and someone is going to be disappointed when they lose. It’s also an adjustment because, especially for Lisa and I, we are used to being on court next to each other, trying to be encouraging and keeping each other positive. We’ve all learned to take it in stride though, by leaving our competitiveness out on the court. When those match-ups happen, we play as well as we can, regardless of who we are playing, and when it’s over, we come off the court and we’re teammates again,” Cioffi said.

Cioffi’s victories from this past weekend put her at sixth on the University’s all-time list for singles and doubles victories combined. With a record of 134-60, she surpassed Paulina Gamboa ’09, who previously held the place with 133-117 during 2005-2009.

The Orange and Blue will be seen at home again for the Bison Invite on Sept. 25-27. This will be the third and final home tournament of the fall season.