Sports > October 16, 2008

By Gary Pasqualicchio | Staff writer

The Wake Forest Lady Deacons competed in the USTA Team Invitational. Sophomore Emilee Malvehy, senior Sierra Poske, freshman Ryann Cutillo and sophomore Katarina Reveche represented Wake Forest in New York from Oct.12-14.

This national event featured opponents from top tennis programs who the Lady Deacs faced in four singles and two doubles flights.

The team finished a combined 10-6 in singles play, led by Reveche and Cutillo who had three wins each.

The Deacs finished 6-1 with Cutillo and Reveche winning their flight.

“I think the team performed really well this weekend,” Reveche said. “Only having four players, we all moved up a flight which was good practice for next year.”

Malvehy got the only ranked win over an opponent for the Deacs on the weekend, beating No.166 Morgan Frank from Texas A&M 6-2, 6-3. She also topped Natalia Christenson of Columbia 6-1, 6-2.

In Flight II, Poske lost her first two matches as well, including a tough three-setter to Brown’s Cassie Herzberg. But, like Malvehy, she rebounded strong with a pair of wins including a thrilling three-setter over Jennifer Holzberg of Rutgers 6-0, 6-7(5-7), 1-0 (10-6). To complete her singles draw, Poske took out Stephanie Davidson from Texas A&M a little easier, 6-4, 6-1.

Reveche and Cutillo, in Flights III and IV respectively, won six out of their eight matches holding up the back end for the Deacs.

Reveche won her first two matches in dominating fashion defeating Katherine Ariak from Rutgers 6-1, 6-4 and topping Columbia’s Nicole Stanziola 6-0, 6-4. After falling to Sheri Oliver from Texas A&M, Reveche bounced back with a comeback win over the Oliver’s teammate Ashley Turpin 3-6, 7-5, 1-0 (10-8).

Cutillo also got off to a quick start by easily dispatching Shelly Carpeni from Dartmouth and Yulia Smirnova from Binghampton 6-3, 6-2 and 6-4, 6-4.

After dropping her third match to Cornell’s Stephanie Kent, she came up with a comeback win over A&M’s Ashley Turpin. After losing the first set 6-2, she won the second 6-4 and a 10-point tiebreaker in substitute of a third set 11-9.

The Lady Deacs followed up a solid couple days of singles with an outstanding doubles record of 6-1.

Poske and Malvehy got things started for Wake Forest by steamrolling their first two opposing teams from Harvard and Columbia 8-5 and 8-0. They then gutted out a tough 9-7 win over Lynne Poggensee-Wei and Jessica Young from Iowa before dropping the championship match 8-4 to Davidson and Frank from the Aggies.

On their way to the Flight Championship, Reveche and Cutillo won close matches including a 9-8 (7-3) win over Emily Wolf and Lauren Sadaka from the University of Pennsylvania and an 8-6 finals victory over Boston College’s Alina Sullivan and Katarina Gajic.

The Deacs finished the tournament with an overall record of 16-7. The team will now prepare for the upcoming ITA Regionals.