ORANGEBURG, S.C. – Bethune-Cookman concluded its 2018 regular season on a very positive note, winning the long-awaited showdown with South Carolina State 5-2 Monday afternoon in a key Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference match.
Matea Roki improved to 20-0 in MEAC play over the past two seasons as the Lady Wildcats (8-7,4-1) finished with their first winning regular season since 2015. B-CU, shorthanded all year, started the season 0-5 but rallied to win eight of its final ten matches.
Recovering quickly from Saturday's 5-2 loss to Florida A&M, the Lady Wildcats also assured themselves of the MEAC Southern Division's No. 2 seed for next week's conference tournament in Norfolk, Va. Florida A&M, B-CU and South Carolina State (5-5,4-1) will finish in a three-way tie, but Florida A&M gets the No. 1 seed in the tiebreaker.
"This year's team was ready to compete against all odds and knew from Day One it was going to take more than hard work," said B-CU coach
Val Villucci. " It was going to take determination, resiliency and being able to overcome any mental weakness. I'm extremely happy with the accomplishments this group of young ladies have made, and we are going to continue to write the story next week at the tournament."
B-CU lost just two games to secure the doubles points, then Roki,
Alejandra Vidal and Rehanna Butt lost a combined eight games between them to clinch the victory.
Phatsimo Ruele registered the day's final point with a No. 5 singles victory that also gave B-CU the tiebreaker advantage.
In addition to Roki's run, Vidal concluded a 5-0 record in MEAC singles play and Butt a perfect mark in doubles.
Roki's doubles win was her 39
th career victory, moving her into sole possession of tenth place on the all-time doubles list.
