Buck and Tefft keep NCAA tournament hopes alive with win on Thursday evening

Buck & Tefft Move Into Semifinals of ITA National Indoors

Nov. 4, 2006

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Notre Dame women’s tennis doubles’ team of junior Brook Buck (Yukon, Okla./Oklahoma Christian School) and sophomore Kelcy Tefft (Enid, Okla./Chisolm) moved into the semifinals to highlight second day action from the 2006 ITA National Indoor Championships at the Racquet Club of Columbus.

Buck and Tefft knocked off Lauren Macfarlance and Nicola Slater of Florida State, 8-4. Macfarlane and Slater had upset the second-seeded squad of Suzi Babos and Zsuzsanna Fodor of California on Thursday. Buck and Tefft improved to 11-2 on the season with their sixth consecutive victory. They move into tomorrow’s semifinals to face fourth-seeded Megan Moulton-Levy and Katarina Zorcic of William & Mary.

The top-seeded Irish doubles team of Christian and Catrina Thompson (Las Vegas, Nev./Bishop Gorman), who lost in the first round on Thursday, defeated Daniela Bercek and Elizabeth Plotkin of Duke, 8-2, in the first round of the consolation draw. The Thompsons will play Whitney Benik and Nina Suvak of Florida on Saturday.

Freshmen Colleen Rielley (Overland Park, Kan./Bishop Miege) and Cosmina Ciobanu (Brea, Calif./Troy) each dropped their consolation matches. Rielley lost to Riza Zalameda of UCLA, 6-1, 6-3, while Ciobanu came up short against Yasmin Schnack of UCLA, 6-1, 6-3. Rielley dropped to 12-3 on the season and Ciobanu fell to 10-4.

The ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships were inaugurated in 1978 for the men and 1984 for the women and recent champions and finalists include current and recent top 100 professionals Benjamin Becker (Baylor), James Blake (Harvard), Bob and Mike Bryan (Stanford), Laura Granville (Stanford), Marissa Irvin (Stanford), Kevin Kim (UCLA), Jeff Morrison (Florida) and Lisa Raymond (Florida). Big Ten legends and Grand Slam finalists Todd Martin (Northwestern) and MaliVai Washington (Michigan) are also among the past champions.

Results for the rest of the weekend’s action will be posted at www.und.com.

— ND —