Addie Smith & Saúl Berríos-Thomas | The Duquesne Duke
Men’s Tennis
The Duquesne men’s tennis team took a disappointing trip to the Carolinas over spring break, picking up two losses against Charlotte and South Carolina State.
In the Dukes’ 6-1 loss to Charlotte on March 4, only senior Pete Carpenter picked up an individual victory finishing 6-0, 4-6 and 6-4 against Charlotte’s Kamil Khalil. Carpenter and senior partner Alex Aleman also finished in a 7-7 draw in doubles play.
On March 5, the Red & Blue finished their road trip with a 4-3 loss against South Carolina State. Picking up individual wins were junior Rich Robbie, senior Max Rubin and junior Mehdi Mekaoui.
Robbie defeated SCSU’s Jiri Striburek 6-3, 6-2. Rubin defeated SCSU’s Soufiane Mouline 7-5, 7-5. Mehdi rounded out individual play beating SCSU’s Daniel Vala 7-6, 5-7, 10-5.
In doubles play only the pairing of Aleman and Carpenter picked up a victory, 8-4, over SCSU’s Martin Kobza and Striburek.
The Dukes next travel to Philadelphia March 21 and March 22 to take on Villanova and Atlantic 10 foe St. Joseph’s.
The Dukes will play only six of the 12 opposing teams in the A10 over the course of the regular season. The Red & Blue were eliminated in the quarterfinals of the A10 tournament last spring. They finished last season 12-7.
In men’s tennis fall season, the Dukes competed in the Carnegie Mellon Invitational, the Penn Invitational, the ITA Regionals Invitational and the Youngstown State Invitational.
The A10 tournament will be held in Charlottesville, Va. April 17 to 20.
Women’s Lacrosse
The Duquesne women’s lacrosse team started off strong in the month of March.
The Dukes secured two big non-conference wins on the road to rebound from their lone loss of the season at Penn State. The Dukes first won a relatively close game at Marquette last Friday by a score of 14-10. They followed that up with a strong outing against Niagara in which they picked up a 19-6 victory. The team’s offense has been strong – they are shooting at 62 percent.
They have been led by a dynamic duo of juniors. Junior midfielder Amanda Kidder leads the team in both goals and points with 16 and 20, respectively. She also leads the Atlantic 10 with 4 goals-per-game. Second on the team in goals is junior midfielder Clare Hurley, who has netted 10 goals in two games.
The Dukes have been doing the little thing too. Kidder is second in the A 10 with 3.5 draw controls-per-game and tied for first in the A-10 with 2.5 caused turnovers-per-game. The Dukes will need Kidder and Hurley to keep the pace up as they finish out their non-conference schedule and look towards A10 play.
The team is in a good position to return to the top of the A-10 tournament come May, but they have to clean up some aspects of their game. They have lost 77 turnovers so far this season. The Dukes look to improve on their 3-1 record, good for second place in the A10, on Friday when they travel to Saint Francis, Pa.
The A10 tournament will be in Richmond, Va. May 2 and May 4.
