West Hartford, Conn. – The Hartford women's tennis team dropped a 4-3 decision to Holy Cross on Tuesday afternoon in the final dual match of the fall for the Hawks. The tennis team will close out the fall season with the ITA Tournament on October 21-25 in New Haven, Conn.

The Hawks opened the match scoring the doubles point, needing a rally at second doubles from Ashley Harel and Haley Gileau to secure the first point. Abby Liu and Katina Zampas opened doubles play by scoring an 8-1 victory at #1 doubles over Molly Montgomery and Taylor Stathis, before Emily Willhoft and Christie Greenberg fell in the #3 doubles match against the Crusaders' Emma Rudnik and Jess DeSimone, 8-3.

Harel and Gileau then rallied from a 3-6 deficit to push their match against Emily Mann and Carolyn Chandley to a tiebreaker, winning the tiebreaker 7-3.

In singles play, the Hawks took points at first and sixth singles with Liu and Greenberg scoring the victories. Liu was the first to pick up a singles point for the Hawks with straight-set shutouts of Montgomery 6-0, 6-0. The Crusaders then rallied for victories at second, third, fourth and fifth singles before the sixth singles match was decided, securing the match victory for the visiting team.

Harel and Zampas both needed three sets for decisions in their singles matches. Harel, playing at #2 singles, dropped her first set to Taylor Stathis by a 6-2 final before using the same score to push the match to a third set decider, but fell once again by a 6-2 score. Zampas dropped her first set to Emily Mann in a tie breaker 7-6(10), but rallied to win the second set by a 7-5 score before dropping the match by a 6-2 final.

Gileau and Willhoft dropped the fourth and fifth singles points for the Hawks, respectively. Gileau fell at #4 singles to Carolyn Chandley by scored of 6-2, 6-1, while Willhoft dropped her fifth singles match to Maya Welch by scores of 6-1, 6-0.

Greenberg used a tiebreaker to finish off her first set at sixth singles against Emily Rudnik. The pair played to a 7-6(2) decision in their first set, with the second set played as a 10-point super breaker as the match had already been decided. Greenberg battled for an 11-9 victory in the second set to score a third point for the Hawks.