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It’s tourney time for UB, Canisius
It’s championship weekend for the Canisius women’s lacrosse team and the University at Buffalo women’s tennis team.
For the Bulls, it’s a chance to defend to their Mid-American Conference title while the Golden Griffins are making just their third appearance in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference lacrosse tournament.
It was the tennis team that gave Buffalo its first MAC team title, winning the championship last year.
The Bulls enter the conference tournament this year as the No. 2 seed with a 6-2 MAC record and a 13-5 overall mark.
Buffalo plays No. 7 Eastern Michigan in Friday’s quarterfinals at host Bowling Green.
Junior Denise Harijanto leads the Bulls with a 21-5 singles record, including a 14-4 mark at first singles. In doubles play Harijanto and Diana Popescu have a 21-3 record, including 16-1 at first doubles.
Meanwhile, Smaranda Stan, the lone senior on the team, is 20-8 on the year after wrapping up a 7-1 record in MAC play. Stan has 77 singles victories, which ranks second in school history.
As a team, the Bulls are on a 10-match win streak and are ranked regionally by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
In MAAC lacrosse, Canisius earned the No. 2 seed and will face No. 3 Marist in the semifinals at 3 p. m. Friday at Iona.
The Griffs are 8-9 overall and 4-2 in the MAAC after losing their regular-season finale to Marist, 10-9. The Red Foxes came back from a four-goal deficit and scored with eight seconds left to earn the win.
Success for Canisius this year has come despite injuries, including a steady rotation that has taken its toll on the starting lineup.
“Every game we’ve been down at least two or three starters and just as we get one person back off a major injury, we lose another one or two,” Canisius coach Scott Teeter said. “We’ve had a total of about seven or eight major injuries throughout the course of the school year. We have a couple girls back from knee injuries who are trying to get in game shape, but now we lost two more last weekend.
“The positive on this team is that it doesn’t matter what is thrown at them or what bit of bad luck they get. We have good leadership and players on the bench who have added depth and kept us going.”
Much of that leadership came from seniors Chelsea Martinez and Ashley Gray.
Martinez leads the team with 56 points. Her 50 goals make her only the second player in program history to reach that single-season plateau while she is just three goals shy of the program record (Whitney Card, 2006).
Martinez set the school record in draw controls both for a single season (60) and career (128).
Meanwhile, Gray took the school’s career goal record with 140 while her 195 career points is five off the program mark (Lauren Walsh, 2005-08). Gray is the only player in school history with 100 career goals and 50 career assists.
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