Women's Tennis

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. - In the most fitting way to conclude its fall season, the top-seeded Adelphi women's tennis team won the 2023 NE10 Championship with a 4-2 win against No. 2 seed Southern New Hampshire on Sunday at Point Set Racquet Club.

The Panthers -- who last achieved a three-peat with Rebecca Fakas and Karen Serina on the roster as players -- now have their first NE10 Championship since 2017.

Despite losing the doubles point and conceding at No. 1 singles, Adelphi (11-1) still stunningly came all the way from behind.

"I'm just very proud of the girls. They did a phenomenal job of fighting," Fakas said. "Even after losing the doubles point, we knew that if we didn't panic and stuck to the game plan, it was still within reach to come back."

And come back they did.

First, Katarina Liedbeck put the lid on an NE10 Championship Most Outstanding Player honor, after prevailing in straight sets at No. 2 (6-3, 6-3) over SNHU's Verena Weindl.

Liedbeck raked in all of the post-match awards, with joining Roisin Boyd and Caterina Federici on the NE10 All-Championship Team and capturing the NE10's Elite 24 Award for carrying the highest cumulative grade-point average at the championship site. As only a sophomore, Liedbeck owns a 4.0 grade-point average as a Computer Science major.

"The Elite 24 Award means so much to me. I do always focus on my tennis, but I make sure to put my studies first, and Computer Science is a tough major, so I'm glad it's going well," Liedbeck described.

"It feels so insane. We worked so hard for this," Liedbeck added about winning her first-ever NE10 Championship. "We knew we could do it, even without the doubles point."

Astrid Bergh split the first two sets with Nadya Lyekontseva at No. 4, and pulled out a decisive 6-2 result in the third set to level the match at 2-all.

The contest hung in the balance at No. 3 singles, where Boyd trailed in all three sets, but still managed to persevere by a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 scoreline.

"Having all the girls across the court and the crowd supporting me helped a lot," Boyd said of her comeback. "We trust each other so much, even when we're down, and never stop believing."

Federici, who was a freshman when the Panthers reached the NE10 final in 2021, put the finishing touches on the match with a 6-0, 6-3 victory at the No. 5 flight.

"It was a tough loss against Franklin Pierce (in 2021), but I think the girls took that -- especially the ones who were there -- and worked hard every day," Fakas reminisced. "We got some fresh faces this year and it was acclimating them into the culture here, and they've done a great job. It was about taking the lessons learned from those losses that got us here."

The Panthers have now earned the conference's automatic qualifier to the NCAA Division II Championship this May. Fakas' squad will look to further bolster its NCAA Tournament resume in the spring, beginning in the New Year against University of the District of Columbia on Saturday, Mar. 16 in Washington, D.C.

-Recap provided by Adelphi athletic communications-

Wednesday, October 18^th       
First Round ­
Match #1: #3 New Haven 4, #6 Franklin Pierce 0
Match #2: #4 Assumption 4, #5 Saint Anselm 0

Friday, October 20^th     
Semifinals
Match #3: #2 Southern New Hampshire 4, #3 New Haven 2
Match #4: #1 Adelphi 4, #4 Assumption 0

Sunday, October 22^nd     
Championship ­
Game 5: #1 Adelphi 4, #2 Southern New Hampshire 2