Box Score Orlando, FL — Playing in one of the tightest matches of the season, the State University of New York at New Paltz dropped a tough, 6-3 match against Connecticut College on day three of its Florida spring break trip.
 
Six of nine matches went into tiebreakers, including at first and third doubles, along with four of the six singles matches.
 
The Camels swept doubles play with Justin Stanejko and Loretta Donovan falling, 8-7 on a tiebreaker at first singles. Isabel van der Veen and Amirah Alston also went into a tie-break at threes but fell 8-7. Onalee Batcheller and Tatiana Barnett competed in another close match at second doubles but also lost with a score of 8-6.
 
The Hawks took wins at second, third and fifth singles. Bacheller defeated Conn College's Sana Bhat in an extra set winning, 6-3, 5-7, 10-8 at twos. Donovan beat Courtney Banks, 6-3, 6-3 at threes, while Alston defeated Anna Slopak in an extended match, coming back from a 2-6 loss in the first set to win, 6-3 and 10-6 in the final two.  
Stanejko lost at first singles, 6-1, 6-0. Barnett, playing at fourth singles, won the first set 6-4 over Lily Kerachsky, but lost the second, 2-6 and dropped another tight tiebreaker, 10-8. Nina Genzone played at sixes for SUNY New Paltz and won the first stanza, 6-4, but ultimately fell to the Camels' Ella Griffiths, 0-6, 2-10.
 
"One of the closest matches that we've been involved in," said Hawks coach Rob Bruley." The doubles teams fought hard to the end of with one doubles and three doubles going to tie breakers. This was pretty much the same with the singles matches with four of the six singles matches going to tiebreakers. We fought really hard and hopefully this kind of good competition will set us up for success in the future."
 
SUNY New Paltz concludes its spring break slate Thursday, taking on Division II Texas A&M-Kingsville at 6 p.m. at the USTA National Campus.

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