Lakeland, Fla. (April 17, 2008) - The No. 29 Saint Leo University women's tennis team (12-9) fell 5-0 to No. 10 Barry University (16-5) in the opening round of the 2008 Sunshine State Conference Tennis Championships on Thursday at the Beerman Tennis Center in Lakeland, Fla.

The No. 6 seed Lions now move into the bacdraw and will face No. 7 seed Florida Tech on Friday morning at 9:00 a..m.  No. 3 seed Barry will take on #2 seed Rollins in a semifinal match on Friday.

Barry's Ildiko Csordas and Helen Wisniewski combined for four points in the shutout win for the Bucs.  Barry swept the three doubles matches to open up a commanding lead from the start.  Csordas paired with Caroline Stevens at number and tallied an 8-0 win over Lina Benkirane (So., Casablanca, Morocco) and Asmaa Tazi (Jr., Casablanca, Morocco).  At number two doubles, Shaena Keefe (So., Spring Hill, Fla.) and Taylor Cleaves (So., Norwell, Mass.) fell 8-4 to Wisniewski and Angie Werschel.  The BU tandem of Olivia Lilien and Berit Peterson earned a sweep of doubles action for the Buccaneers with a 8-4 win over Veronica Queen (Fr., Valrico, Fla.) and Gina Schifano (So., Tampa, Fla.) at number three doubles.

In singles, Benkirane fell 6-2, 6-1 to Csordas in the number one match. Queen was also a straight set loser, falling 6-2, 6-0 to Wisniewski in the number four slot ending the match.

Saint Leo defeated Florida Tech 5-4 earlier this season in Melbourne in the teams' previous meeting.  The Panthers fell Thursday to No. 7 Rollins by a score of 5-0.