{"id":624675,"date":"2026-04-23T00:59:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624675\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T00:59:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:59:19","slug":"no-28-rock-beats-vulcans-clinches-psac-tournament-home-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/624675\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 28 Rock beats Vulcans, clinches PSAC Tournament home match"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/y13.png\" alt=\"West Chester University\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                Next Match:<\/p>\n<p> West Chester University<\/p>\n<p>4\/28\/2026 | TBA<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                    Apr. 28 (Tue) \/ TBA&#13;\n                <\/p>\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sidearm-story-template-next-game-opponent-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/y13.png\" alt=\"West Chester University\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n                        \u00a0West Chester University&#13;\n                    <\/p>\n<p>                             &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. &#8211; The No. 28 Slippery Rock University women&#8217;s tennis team earned a 6-1 Senior Day victory over California (Pa.) Wednesday at the SRU Tennis Courts.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWednesday&#8217;s regular-season finale triumph improved The Rock&#8217;s record to 12-3 overall and 5-1 inside the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division, while the Vulcans leave SRU at 12-10 overall and 3-2 in league matches. Slippery Rock&#8217;s 12-3 record is tied for the sixth-best 15-match start to a season in program history.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSRU has now won 10 straight matches against California, including nine shutouts. Slippery Rock is 21-1 in matches played at the SRU Tennis Courts since 2021-22.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSlippery Rock \u2013 which was positioned second in the latest Atlantic Region rankings and climbed 20 spots to No. 28 in the most recent Intercollegiate Tennis Association national top 50 poll \u2013 guaranteed itself of finishing second in the PSAC West regular season standings and earning a home match in the quarterfinal round of the upcoming PSAC Tournament.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Rock will host West Chester &#8211; the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Division &#8211; April 28 at the SRU Tennis Courts. An official start time for the match will be announced in the coming days. Slippery Rock will be looking to make its fifth consecutive trip to the PSAC Tournament Championship match.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nFor the 14th time in 15 matches this year, Slippery Rock earned the team doubles point as SRU took all three flights in order to set the tone of the day.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/rockathletics.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/alissia-kivi\/37168\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"37168\" target=\"_blank\">Alissia Kivi<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/rockathletics.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/nicole-kempton\/37167\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"37167\" target=\"_blank\">Nicole Kempton<\/a> \u2013 the No. 41 doubles team in Division II \u2013 first captured a 6-3 win over Leandra Guldimann and Sofia Rodriguez for what was their 19th overall win of 2026.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe second and third flights both ended in 6-2 Rock wins with <a href=\"https:\/\/rockathletics.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/amaia-balaguer-brau\/37165\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"37165\" target=\"_blank\">Amaia Balaguer Brau<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/rockathletics.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/tina-slovak\/37170\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"37170\" target=\"_blank\">Tina Slovak<\/a> beating Cal&#8217;s Diletta Maria Mungo \/ Garance Laforet as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/rockathletics.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/dari-sakhanova\/37169\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"37169\" target=\"_blank\">Dari Sakhanova<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/rockathletics.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/nadia-rodewald\/37172\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"37172\" target=\"_blank\">Nadia Rodewald<\/a> besting Fernanda Sandoval Martinez and Lilli Schreiber.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWednesday&#8217;s results push Balaguer Brau and Slovak to a five-match winning streak and a 17-4 record. Meanwhile, Sakhanova and Rodewald improve to a stellar 20-2 overall and 12-1 in dual matches.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSlippery Rock cruised to the PSAC West victory by grabbing wins in the top five singles flights.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBalaguer Brau led off the group via a convincing 6-2, 6-1 victory from the top flight over Guldimann as the two-time PSAC West Athlete of the Year improved her record to 18-7 overall and 11-4 from the top flight.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nKivi, who entered the ITA national singles rankings at No. 71 this week, was a 6-4, 6-2 winner in second-flight play against Maria Mungo. Kivi has now posted five straight wins, improving to 21-4 overall.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nOut of the third flight, Kempton took care of a 6-1, 6-0 win against Laforet which improved her record to 17-6 overall and 10-4 in dual matches.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nPlaying in her last regular season home match, Sakhanova competed out of the fourth flight and defeated Martinez in 6-3, 6-2 fashion. Sakhanova has gone 15-6 as a senior.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nRodewald pushed her winning streak to an impeccable 12 consecutive matches by way of a 6-0, 6-0 shutout of Schreiber. The Grand Valley State transfer is now 17-6 in her first year at SRU.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Vulcans avoided the sweep when Rodriguez defeated <a href=\"https:\/\/rockathletics.com\/sports\/womens-tennis\/roster\/anna-poranski\/37171\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"37171\" target=\"_blank\">Anna Poranski<\/a> in the sixth flight (6-2, 6-4).<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nPrior to Wednesday&#8217;s match, The Rock honored their 2026 senior class of Balaguer Brau, Sakhanova and Slovak for their contributions to the program over the course of their Slippery Rock careers. All three are ranked in the top 12 for wins in a career at SRU.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To stay up to date with all that happens at The Rock, follow our official Athletic Communication accounts on &#8216;X&#8217; (formerly Twitter,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/rock_athletics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@Rock_Athletics<\/a>), Facebook (<a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/rockathletics\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RockAthletics<\/a>) and Instagram (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.instagram.com\/rockathletics\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RockAthletics<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; &#13; Next Match: West Chester University 4\/28\/2026 | TBA &#13; Apr. 28 (Tue) \/ TBA&#13; &#13;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-624675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}