As the women's tennis team prepared for its fifth-place match at last weekend's University Athletic Association Championships at home, it faced a New York University squad that it had defeated 7-2 on a neutral court March 14 at Middlebury College. The Violets were able to exact revenge this time, however, defeating the Judges 5-3 to secure fifth place in the UAA tournament. The loss dropped the Judges, ranked fifth out of eight squads coming into the Championships, to sixth place in the tournament. They were 1-2 overall on the weekend, losing to fourth-seeded No. 14 Washington University in St. Louis last Friday in the first round and sweeping eighth-seeded Case Western Reserve University 9-0 in a consolation match last Saturday. The women's team finishes the season with an 11-9 mark.

The men's squad's match against Bryant University last Wednesday was rained out and will not be made up. The team finishes the season with a 7-13 record.

Emory University won its 22nd consecutive UAA Championships by defeating Carnegie Mellon University in the finals.

Though Brandeis finished worse in the tournament than it was seeded, coach Ben Lamanna said he has no regrets with how the team played.

"I'm real proud of the girls; they fought real hard. They did everything that I ever asked them to do. To come up short like that kind of leaves a bitter taste, but not in the way I feel about them," he said.

The Judges won the first doubles match against NYU but lost the final two to fall into an early 2-1 hole. No. 1 doubles partners Rachel Rosman '11 and Mackenzie Gallegos '11 defeated rookie Elizabeth Stachtiaris and senior captain Stephanie Tu for the second time this year, winning 8-5. But NYU's No. 2 duo of senior Amanda Freedman and sophomore Lisa Mijovic knocked off the Judges' pairing of Gabrielle Helfgott '09 and Nina Levine '12 8-4, and the No. 3 pairing of Ariana Sanai '10 and Emily Weisberger '10 fell to sophomores Elizabeth Feldman and Lena-Sophie Krups 8-5.

"If we're up 2-1 [in doubles] it changes the match," Lamanna said. "It comes down to executing our big points in doubles."

However, the Judges battled back. After No. 6 Levine fell to Krups 6-2, 6-1, Brandeis won the next two singles matches to even the score at 3-3, as No. 1 Rosman beat Stachtiaris 6-1, 6-1 and Gallegos edged Freedman 6-3, 6-4.

NYU took a 4-3 lead when Weisberger dropped her match at No. 5 singles to Mijovic 6-2, 6-4, so Brandeis needed to win the last two singles matches in order to avoid the upset.

In her last collegiate match, Helfgott, playing at No. 2 singles, won the first set against Tu 6-4, but Tu bounced right back in the second set with a 6-4 victory of her own and raced to a 5-2 lead in the third set. The next game went into deuce, but eventually Tu emerged victorious 6-2, clinching the match for NYU with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory.

"It kind of breaks my heart to have a kid that works so hard and cares so [much] not win her last match," Lamanna said.

Helfgott expressed some disappointment in losing her final collegiate match, but said she preferred to focus on her whole Brandeis career rather than just her last match.

"I'm not going to lie, I obviously am a little bit disappointed with how it turned out," she said. "But one thing that I take away and take pride in as a player is that I don't reflect on this being the last match. I sort of look at it [like] I've had a great run here for four years, and sometimes you're going to win and sometimes you're going to lose."

In the consolation semifinals last Saturday, eighth-seeded Case Western proved to be no competition for the Judges.

In doubles, the No. 1 pairing of Rosman and Gallegos beat sophomore Cheyenne Chambers and senior Marta Worwag 8-4, the No. 2 pair of Helfgott and Levine handled junior Jennifer Clever and sophomore Emily Hoffman 8-1 and the No. 3 duo of Sanai and Weisberger swept sophomore Carrie Reese and rookie Svetlana Villano, 8-0. In singles, no Brandeis player lost more than three games in a set.

Against WashU last Friday, Rosman accounted for both Brandeis points in the 7-2 loss. Rosman teamed up with Gallegos at No. 1 doubles for an 8-6 win and then knocked off sophomore Karina Kocemba at No. 1 singles 6-1, 6-4. For the weekend, Rosman went 6-0 in her matches, while Gallegos finished 5-1 in hers.

The Judges will lose only Helfgott next year to graduation, and Rosman, Gallegos, Levine, Sanai and Weisberger will all return to the Judges' starting lineup. Lamanna praised Helfgott's contributions both on and off the court.

"She's an unbelievable kid, one of the nicest kids in the world," Lamanna said. "She's been a great captain [and an] unbelievably hard worker. [She is the] prototypical student athlete: academics first, tennis second, social life third.