Sept. 15, 2006

MIDLAND, Mich. - Jennifer Daly, the No. 15 seed, won both of her matches at the Wilson/ITA Women's Division II Championships hosted by Northwood University.

Daly dispatched Lake Superior's Megan Smith in the opening round, 6-2, 6-3, then defeated McCall Monte of Grand Valley 6-2, 6-2 in the second round. She will face the No. 4 seed Celina Grondin of Lake Superior in the quarterfinals.

Daly was the only Mercyhurst player to win a singles match. Chelsea Downing dropped a 6-2, 6-0 match to Wayne State's Dee Mays. Meghan Raynor fell 6-1, 6-0 to the seven-seed Mouna Sabri of Drury. Christine Mersch was defeated by Marcia Hornung of Bellarmine 6-3, 7-6 (3). Jamie Sutyak came out on short end of a 6-4, 6-0 score against Drury's Eva Hankova. Jaclyn McLean fell 6-4, 6-3 to Caitlin Buckley of Rockhurst and Elizabeth Mullane lost a hard-fought three-setter to Ann Grant of Ferris State 7-6 (10-8), 1-6, 10-4.

In doubles action, the duo of Daly and Sutyak, seeded eighth, won its opening round match in convincing fashion. The pair took an 8-1 final from Michigan Tech's Samantha Jang-Stewart and Katherine Lindahl. But in the second round, the Laker pair was upended, 8-5, by Ida Kuruvilla and Brittney Hanna.

The teams of Mersch and Raynor and Downing and McLean both dropped first round matches. Mersch/Raynor fell 8-1 to the seventh seeded team from Northwood of Julia Gonclaves and Desiree Roset. Downing/McLean fell to Kandice Belanger and Julie Schwartz of Rockhurst, 8-1.

Matches were played at the Gerstacker Tennis Center (8 courts) on the campus of Northwood University and The Midland Community Tennis Center (32 Courts).

Top 10 teams of the 38 NCAA DII teams in the Great Lakes Region were eligible to participate. The top 64 ranked players in singles and the top 32 doubles teams were eligible to enter.

Action at the ITAs continues on Saturday, September 16. Quarterfinals are scheduled for 11:00 am with the semis and finals scheduled for Sunday. The winner of the singles and doubles events will then qualify for the Nationals on Oct. 14 - 16 at Orlando, Florida.