Feb. 18, 2005
ORLANDO - The UCF women's tennis team faces a daunting task when it travels to southern Florida this weekend. The Golden Knights (1-5) visit Atlantic Sun rival Florida Atlantic on Saturday for a 10 a.m. match, before taking on No. 10 Miami at noon on Sunday.
The Black & Gold gained confidence this week after earning a solid 7-0 victory over Morgan State on Tuesday followed by a near upset at No. 55 USF on Wednesday. It has been a rough start for the Knights as they have played no fewer than five ranked opponents thus far this season.
Despite the tough competition, UCF has performed particularly well at the bottom of the lineup recently. Freshman Jennifer Carati has taken three of her matches at No. 4 to tiebreakers. Against USF, she won the first set 4-6 before dropping the last two.
Sophomore Megan Rosario-Hunter has gone 2-0 in her last two matches with identical 6-0, 6-0 scores. Earlier in the month, she went to a tiebreaker against Nancy Peaden of Auburn and also came close to splitting sets with Florida State's Tapiwa Marobela.
Meanwhile, freshman Kyla McNicol, who was nursing some injuries early in the season, entered the lineup at No. 6 singles against Morgan State and has gone undefeated at 2-0 thus far.
McNicol and Hunter also combined their talents to earn an impressive 8-0 victory at No. 3 doubles at USF.
The Golden Knights will need the lineup to be solid from top to bottom against both FAU and Miami. They have a 17-7 edge over the Lady Owls and even beat FAU, 4-3, in the semifinals of the Atlantic Sun tournament last season. Florida Atlantic opened its season with a 7-0 loss at Miami on Tuesday night.
UCF has never beaten the Hurricanes (3-2), going 0-5 in series history.