The UCSB women’s tennis team brought out the brooms this weekend, sweeping both singles and doubles championships at the Cal State Fullerton Fall Intercollegiate Tennis Tournament. Junior Marielle Gruenig took home first place in singles and paired with freshman Charlotte Scatliffe to win doubles.

Santa Barbara’s performance in the tournament showed a marked improvement over last year’s team when doubles failed to advance and did more for UCSB than just kick off the start of the 2004-05 season.

“Usually we go to the Fullerton tournament to see where we’re at and who the other schools have picked up; [its] a kick off tournament,” UCSB Head Coach Pete Kirkwood said. “We definitely exceeded expectations, did more than we thought we could do.”

Unseeded Chelsea Glynn stood out after day two, advancing to the semi-final round of singles play to face #8 seeded Ruya Inapulat of Fullerton. Glynn teamed with junior Mio Fukushima to eliminate Riverside’s Michelle Beyronneau and Casey Cross, seeded #2, 8-6 in the quarterfinals before losing in the semifinals of doubles play.

Gruenig-Scatliffe competed for first place against #1-seeded Irvine doubles team of Izabela Mijic and Hui Leow. The two teams battled back and forth before Santa Barbara pulled its first doubles victory of the season.

“[Scatliffe] is just the tip of the iceberg,” Kirkwood said. “She had a tough draw in singles and played real tough but in doubles she’s probably our best doubles players, even as a freshman.”

In the singles championship, it was a Gaucho vs. Gaucho match that pitted #2-seeded Gruenig against Glynn, with Gruenig winning 6-3, 6-4.

“Overall we were just pretty pleased, we really showed our depth,” Kirkwood said. “The whole team did really well.”

Next, the Gauchos will take on some of the top teams in the west at the ITA West Regionals in San Diego.

“This is the big one for the fall. Everyone from the west region will be there and competing against the upper echelon of teams and individual players,” Kirkwood said. “It will be an opportunity tournament for us as we don’t have a lot of opportunities to play upper-ranked schools.”