ERIE, Pa. - Franciscan women's tennis suffered its first loss of the season in a 7-2 decision to conference rival Penn St.-Behrend.

This match was the first time the two teams had faced each other since last year's conference championship, which the Barons took 5-2 along with the AMCC title.

Behrend returned all but one of their starters from that championship match while the Lady Barons are almost an entirely new team.  

"I tried to make it not set up for a rematch or holding the title because only three of our ten girls played on that team," head coach Jeremy Ellis said. "I'm sure Behrend felt it as a rematch, but we're a new team. I think that works in our favor."

The Lady Barons struggled to get started during doubles play, only winning one of the three matches. Senior Renata Crespo and sophomore Maggie Vander Woude pulled out the win at no. 2 doubles 8-6.

Singles play saw some really long, good matches that could have ended in either team's favor. Freshman Maria Binette played one of the best matches of the night on court no. 1, winning the last five games to win the first set after being down 5-2.

Despite the dramatic turn of events in the first set, Binette lost the second set 6-4 after she got gassed by her opponent. The two played a 10-point final set to decide the match, which the freshman lost 10-6.

"It was a fantastic match, she played extremely well," Ellis said. "She's going to be a player to watch coming up here, she's tough."

Junior Claire Hadded won 6-2, 6-2 at no. 4 singles to secure the second point for the Lady Barons.

"She had a good match, started out a little slow but then pulled it together," Ellis said.

With two more matches this weekend against conference opponents and a majority of the season still to go, Ellis said that the team can take a lot of good learning experiences from a tough matchup with Behrend.

"Overall, we have some work still to do," Ellis said. "There is good and bad now, losing to Behrend. You always hate losing to your biggest opponent but it puts us in a better position come conference finals."

Franciscan will travel to Pitt.-Bradford tomorrow, September 19, to take on the Panthers at 1 pm.