College Tennis
Women: Rider University 7, Saint Francis (N.Y.) 0
Men: Saint Francis (N.Y.) 4, Rider University 3
LAWRENCEVILLE - The Rider University men's and women's tennis teams had a home match against Saint Francis (N.Y.) Sunday afternoon.
For the Rider women, freshman Kim Leder (Sicklerville/Timber Creek) won at fifth singles 6-2, 6-4 and sophomore Alexa Manforti (Toms River/Toms River HS South) won at sixth singles 6-1, 6-1. These two ended Rider's sweep of the singles matches.
"The women have swept all of the matches for the second match in a row," said head coach Ed Torres. "It is nice to get two wins in a row, especially when we sweep them. It is going to be a different story tomorrow when we play the defending champion Fairfield. They need this good play today for tomorrow."
In doubles, the Broncs swept the three matches.
For the Rider men, freshman Rollie Malfitano (Wenonah/Gloucester Catholic) won at first singles putting Rider in front in the scorebook. It ended up not being enough as they could only win two more singles matches.
"Rollie had a really close match," said Torress. "It went five all in the third set. He lost the first set and won the second set. I told him to just keep the ball in play. He did exactly that. He kept it in play and drew the error."
In doubles Rider got a win from sophomore Drew Laverty (Mount Royal/Kingsway Regional) and senior Chris Esposito (Ocean Grove/Neptune) but had no such luck in the other two.
"It was a match that could have gone either way," Torres said. "Two very evenly matched teams. The team as a whole played very well. Losing the doubles was too much to overcome today."
Against Saint Francis in 2008-09 the men lost 3-4 and the women won 7-0.
The Bronc women will take on Fairfield Monday at 3pm in Lawrenceville for a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference match. The men will travel to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. to take on Marist Tuesday at 4pm in a MAAC match.
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