AU men, women’s tennis fall in PBC tournament; Borbon Roca named freshman of year
By Chris Rickerson | Sports editor
The Augusta University tennis teams failed to advance to the Peach Belt Conference Championship after the men lost 4-0 to Lander in the quarterfinals and the women lost 4-1 to Columbus State in the in the semifinals over the weekend in Columbus at John W. Walden Tennis Center.
AU’s women’s tennis team, which was the fifth seed, won their first-round matchup, defeating fourth-seeded Georgia College 4-1 in the quarterfinals on Friday, April 29.
Teresa Franco Dias and Julia Moraes of the Jaguars defeated Georgia College’s Emma Fleming and Emilia Richter 6-2 in a doubles matchup.
AU’s Carlota Costa Manero and Edith Rueda Croda dropped the second doubles match 6-4 to Jordan Bowie and Ashton Morrison.
Claudia Borbon Roca and Clara Basunana of the Jaguars defeated Chiara Santoro and Sofia Shing in the final doubles match.
In singles, Moraes won her match with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Richter. Georgia College bounced back with a win as Fleming defeated Croda 6-3, 6-3. DeMiguel beat Morrison 6-3, 6-1, and Manero downed Bowie 6-3, 6-4 , giving the Jaguars match.
The women advanced to the semifinals but lost 4-1 to top-seeded Columbus State on Saturday, April 30.
Neila Trklja and Agostina Bigotti of CSU defeated Manero and Croda 6-2 in doubles. AU bounced back with a 7-6 win in Borbon and Basunana over Sara Ramirez and Luciana Galves . Dias and Moraes fell in a 7-6 tiebreaker to Mariana Ramirez and Valentina Abrile.
In singles, Basunana fell to Galves 6-0, 6-1. Rueda bounced back for AU at fourth singles with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Yelena Labat. The Jaguars would fail to win anymore singles matchups with CSU’s Bigotti defeating Costa 6-2, 7-5 and Trklja taking down Borbon 6-1, 7-6.
On the men’s side, the fifth-seeded Jaguars fell to the fourth-seeded Bearcats. Lander’s Nick Beamish and Markus Sorensen defeated AU’s Daniel Szczupak and Artur Abyan Davydovs 6-1. Thomas De Negri and Hugo Regner of Lander won doubles match 6-3 over Herick Isago and Alvaro Quereda of the Jaguars to clinch the doubles point for the Bearcats.
The Bearcats went on to dominate singles as well, holding the Jaguars winless.
The PBC also announced the conference’s yearly awards earlier in the week.
The Jaguars had two players from the women’s tennis team named to the PBC all-conference teams. Borbon Roca was named the freshman of the year and to the all-conference first team.
Moraes was named to the all-conference second team for the Jaguars. Bascunana was awarded the Elite 16 award. The Elite 16 is awarded to the student-athlete who is competing in the PBC tournament with the highest grade-point average.
Contact Chris Rickerson at crickerson@augusta.edu.
