Bonnies downed by Richmond, finish 3rd at Atlantic-10 tournament
4/11/05

4/11/05 - St. Bonaventure finished 3rd for the second straight year at the Atlantic-10 Championships.  The Bonnies defeated St. Josephs 4-1 and Xavier 4-0, but fell to eventual-champion Richmond 4-2 in the semifinals.  The Bonnies finish the season with an 11-10 record.  The Bonnies have now finished 3rd or higher each of the past six years.  Seniors Nikhil Murali, Sajeel Qureshi and Mario Arce (pictured) all finished their college careers in the tournament.

The Bonnies learned the day before the tournament began that they would be seeded #4 after the coaches meeting Thursday night.  The coaches voted Richmond, whom the Bonnies never played and shared common wins and losses with, at #1, Dayton, a team the Bonnies defeated 4-3 in the regular  season, at #2 and Xavier, a team that defeated the Bonnies 4-3 but fell to Dayton 6-1, at #3.

DAY 1: #4 SBU 4 #3 St. Josephs 1

Against St. Joes, the Bonnies came out to fast starts on all 3 doubles courts.  However, only the senior duo of Arce and Murali was able to maintain dominance with an 8-2 thrashing at the #1 position.  At #2 doubles, sophomore Andrew Hart and Alejandro Nery were given a point penalty to set up triple match point and were defeated 8-6 with #3 doubles still battling on court.  The #3 duo of sophomore Dejan Stankovic and freshman Antonio Farias dropped an 8-6 decision and St. Joes had a 1-0 lead heading into singles play,

After an inspired speech from Arce, the Bonnies rebounded in singles.  Early on, the Bonnies took the first sets in five out of the six singles matches.  Arce was the first off the court with a straight-set victory at #1 and the score was tied 1-1.  Shortly after, Nery scored a straight-set victory at #2 to make the score 2-1 for the Bonnies.  At this point, the Hawks started to rebound and took the second sets from Stankovic and Qureshi at #5 and #6 singles respectively.  However, Hart was able to take the second set at #4 singles and force a third-set.  Murali was able to dominate his opponent in the second set after winning the first in a tiebreak and gave the Bonnies a 3-1 lead with Hart, Stankovic and Qureshi fighting opponents for the match-deciding 4th point.  Hart was able to win the third set 6-3 and clinch the 4-1 victory for the Bonnies.  Qureshi and Stankovic didn't finish their matches since the team competition was already decided.  The win set up a semi-final encounter with Richmond.

DAY 2 #4 SBU 2 #1 Richmond 4

Against Richmond, an inspired Bonnies team expected to beat defending champions Richmond a rematch of last year's semifinals.  In doubles, Arce and Murali scored an 8-6 victory at #1.  However, at #3 Stankovic and Farias dropped a 9-7 decision and the doubles point would be decided at the #2 position.  The duo of Hart and Nery battled hard before dropping a 9-7 decision and Richmond was able to win the doubles point and take a 1-0 lead heading into singles.

The Bonnies continued to play with a lot of emotion and will in the singles.  Hart suffered his first conference loss in singles of the season with a straight-set defeat at #4 to give the Spiders a 2-0 lead.  Arce cut the lead to 2-1 with a straight-set victory at #1.  Shortly after, Stankovic dropped a straight-set decision at #5 to give the Spiders a 3-1 lead.  The Bonnies cut the lead to 1 again with a straight-set victory by Nery at #2 with seniors Murali and Qureshi remaining on the court.  Both seniors were in the third sets of matches.  Murali dropped the first set, but bounced back to win the second and force the deciding third set while Qureshi won the first and dropped the second.  Qureshi and his opponent were exchanging games until 5-4.  Qureshi was able to save a match point and force the game to deuce.  The match was decided on two highly questionable calls from his opponent and the Spiders were able to hang on and win 4-2.  Murali was trailing 4-1 in the final set when Qureshi lost.

DAY 3: SBU 4 Xavier 0

A day after their heart-breaking loss to Richmond, the Bonnies had to take the courts against an Xavier team that beat them 4-3 in the regular season.  In doubles Arce and Murali capped the season with an 8-2 thrashing at #1 and shortly after Nery and Hart scored an 8-2 thrashing of their own at #2 and gave the Bonnies a 1-0 lead heading into singles.

In the singles, Arce, Nery and Stankovic scored straight-set victories at the 1,2 and 5 positions respectively to score the win for the Bonnies.  Both Arce and Nery were undefeated on the weekend in singles play.  Arce finished the season with a 31-6 overall record and a 7-0 conference record.  This should make the senior a serious candidate for his second Atlantic-10 Player of the Year Award.   

LOOKING AHEAD

The Bonnies have finished their 2004-2005 season.  The Bonnies will graduate 3 starters in Qureshi, Murali and Arce and lose graduate-assistant coach Justin Brtko who has completed his MBA and 3 year term with the Bonnies.  A revamped Bonnies team, led by the trio of Nery, Stankovic and Hart, with many new faces and talented freshmen will take the courts for the 2005-2006 season and hope to dethrone Richmond and reclaim the prestigious Atlantic-10 Championship.

On behalf of all the seniors, thank you to the readers of this website and the St. Bonaventure community for your support and interest in our tennis team.  We have enjoyed our time here and will cherish the friendships and memories forever.