WALTHAM, Mass. -- The Brandeis women's tennis team bounced back from just its second loss of the year to win their next two matches and finish in fifth place at the inaugural Nor'Easter Bowl tournament hosted by Wellesley. 

The tournament, which featured six of the top 30 teams in NCAA Division III women's tennis according to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, saw the 19th-ranked Judges face the No. 24 Skidmore Thoroughbreds in the opening round. Brandeis fell behind, 2-1, after doubles action. The Judges' lone point came at No. 2, where sophomore Roberta Bergstein (Hingham, Mass./Hingham) and senior Nina Levine (Westport, Conn./Staples) earned an 8-3 victory. 

In singles action, the top two spots were dominated by the Judges, where rookie Carley Cooke (San Diego, Calif./Point Loma) and junior Faith Broderick (Washingtonville, N.Y./Washingtonville) avenged what was only their second doubles loss of the season. They each won by scores of 6-0, 6-1, at No. 1 and No. 2 singles, respectively. Skidmore's Nataly Mendoza turned in a similar 6-1, 6-0, win at No. 3, tying the match at 3-3. The fourth and sixth singles matches also finished with similar scores, as Lee Ford of the Thoroughbreds and Brandeis's Simone Vandroff (Moss Beach, Calif./Half Moon Bay) were 6-2, 6-3, victors. In the final match of the day, however, the visitors prevailed, as Robyn Baird outlasted Bergstein, 2-6, 6-1, 6-3.

In the consolation bracket, the Judges drew the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, the tournament's eighth seed. Brandeis rolled, with six of the nine matches seeing Brandeis players losing one or zero games. Vandroff, playing singles up at No. 4, and classmate Dylan Schlesinger (Miami, Fla./Palmetto), at No. 5, didn't lose a game between them, as they teamed up for an 8-0 doubles win at No. 3 and had 6-0, 6-0 singles triumphs. Rookie Jill Martin (Atlanta, Ga./Lovejoy)  improved to 3-0 at No. 6 singles with a three-set win, 5-7, 6-2 and 10-6 in a super tiebreaker.

In the fifth-place match, the Judges faced a rematch with #30 Bates College, whom they had defeated, 6-3, earlier this season in Lewiston, Maine. Once again, the visitors took a 2-1 lead after doubles play, with Schlesinger and Vandroff's 8-4 win at No. 3 providing Brandeis's point. Broderick won handily at No. 2, 6-1, 6-1, but the Bobcats pushed the lead to 4-2 as Cooke suffered just her second dual loss of the season at No. 1, 6-3, 6-4, to Elena Manzhukova, while Erika Bluth knocked off Brandeis' Alexa Katz (Philadelphia, Pa./Abington Friends), 6-2, 6-3, to put the visitors on the brink of the upset.

Brandeis rallied to win the final three matches, taking a pair of tiebreakers and a three-set victory to emerge with the triumph. Vandroff started the comeback at No. 5, 6-2, 7-6, winning the tiebreaker, 7-4. Bergstein knotted the match at 4-4 with a nice bounce-back, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4. That left sophomore Allyson Bernstein (Northbrook, Ill./Glenbrook North) to finish the rally at No. 3, as she won 6-4, 7-6, taking a 7-4 tiebreaker to win the match for the Judges.  

Apr 06, 2012 at Waltham, Mass. (Rieger Tennis Courts) 

#24 Skidmore College 5, #19 Brandeis University 4

Apr 07, 2012 at Waltham, Mass. (Rieger Tennis Courts) 

#19 Brandeis University 9, Puerto Rico-Mayaguez 0

Apr 08, 2012 at Waltham, Mass. (Rieger Tennis Courts) 

#19 Brandeis University 5, #30 Bates College 4