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It was over just as quick as it started. The shortest match of the season of 89 minutes of run time, as Syracuse (10-1, 3-1 Atlantic Coast) overwhelmed Coppin State (0-8, 0-0 Mid-Eastern Atlantic) 7-0.

The Orange clinched their 10th win of the year when Polina Kozyreva won her singles match 2-0, (6-0, 6-0) to remain undefeated on the season. Coppin State only brought four players to Syracuse, making the route to victory very simple. Since the Golden Eagles didn’t have enough players, they forfeited one of the doubles matches along with two of the singles matches. 

“It was important for us to come in here with the right attitude and to redeem ourselves after a tough one yesterday,” head coach Younes Limam said postgame. 

Syracuse had a giant gap in terms of talent, as Viktoriya Kanapatskaya and Shirori Ito took quick care of Kenyange Kaounde and Mackenzie Jones in a 6-0 blowout.

Coppin State just simply had no answer for anything that Orange did, and it was obvious. Kanapatskaya and Ito kept their foot on the gas to finish the match and give the Orange the lone point available. 

While there wasn’t any stress on their face, they stayed composed and dominated their competition with hard returns from the front line and a good mix up of hard and soft shots. They forced plenty of errors out of their opponents, as they struggled at points to even serve the ball over the net. 

Coppin State only won three total games in all of the matches, all of which coming in the No. 1 doubles match between SU’s Zeynep Erman and Ines Fonte and CSU’s Megan Etienne and Emperess Johnson. 

Erman and Fonte dominated at first, jumping out to a 3-0 lead. But, they started to let off as they gave up the next couple games to tie the match at three apiece. A quick talk with assistant coach Maddie Cobelt after Johnson tied the game fired the Syracuse pair up. 

They would come out after the break recharged and would win the next three games to win the match and sweep the doubles round. 

With only having to play four of the available six players in the singles round, Limam got to choose which players he wanted to play. 

“It was a decision of trying to see who is the most ready to go, and I think at this point in the season, with yesterday being a very physical match [against no. 15 Virginia] we wanted to see who needed to play a little bit more and who needed to rest a little bit more,” Limam said.

Limam would end up resting Erman and Kanapatskaya, and moved Miyuka Kimoto back to the No. 1 singles spot. He moved Kozyreva up from her No. 4 singles spot up to No. 2 singles. Every single Syracuse player swept their matches, not dropping a game, all of them winning 2-0 (6-0, 6-0). 

Kimoto had lost her last four singles matches coming into today, all of them coming in either the No. 2 or No. 3 singles spots. She matched up against Etienne with an opportunity to snap the streak and regain some of that confidence she had at the start of the spring season. 

“Every time you step on the court and get a ‘W’ it’s a great day and I think it was very important for her to set the tone and build back that confidence. Confidence comes from winning and I’m very pleased to see her get that win under her belt,” Limam said.

Limam also decided to not play Kimoto or Kozyreva in the doubles round, saving them for singles where they can be fresh and ready to go. 

Kozyreva would be the fastest finisher of the day, as she finished her singles match against Jones in about 20 minutes as she secured the final point for an Orange win. The senior was never in danger of losing her streak today, and has won all 11 of her matches this season. 

Fonte would finish her match against CSU’s Johnson in the same fashion, with ease. She played a very clean match as she outpaced Johnson to a 2-0 win. In all matches, Syracuse outscored the Golden Eagles 60-3 in games and won every single set. 

Today’s match against Coppin State was the second of three matches this weekend for Syracuse, which will return to ACC play tomorrow when they play No. 44 Virginia Tech. 

“Tomorrow’s match is going to be a big one, obviously. It’s important, I think the schedule has been good to us, we just have to put everything in to tomorrow’s match and we’ll see what happens,” Limam said.

Published on March 4, 2023 at 2:36 pm