Women's tennis battles #3 California in NCAA First Round Friday

LIVE VIDEO/LIVE SCORING | NCAA BRACKET

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – After win its first-ever Northeast Conference Championship in April, the Bryant University women's tennis team heads to third-seeded California for the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, May 8.

The Bulldogs and the Golden Bears will face off on Friday at 4 p.m. EST in the opening round in Berkeley, Calif., to determine who will move on to face the winner of Houston vs. Mississippi St. on Saturday in the second round of play.

Led by NEC Player of the Year Ryan Brown (Austin, Texas), the Black and Gold put together a historic season, finishing 9-7 overall including a dominating showing at the NEC Tournament in West Windsor, N.J. Bryant dropped just a single point en route to its first NEC Title and, in the process, earned the right to compete in its first-ever Division I NCAA Tournament.

Brown, who became just the second player in program history to be named NEC Player of the Year, led a group of six Bulldogs who earned All-NEC honors. Bryant swept the major awards, including Ashanti Campfield's (Stratford, Conn.) Rookie of the Year nod and head coach Barbara Cilli's first NEC Coach of the Year honor.

As a unit, the Black and Gold went an impressive 21-8 overall vs NEC opponents on the year, including an unprecedented 12-1 at the NEC Championships. However looking ahead, the Bulldogs are faced with the daunting task of trying to slow down one of the top teams in the country in Cal.

The Golden Bears, who finished the year 20-3 overall and 9-1 in the stacked Pac-12, feature an entire singles lineup that ranks in the top 103 in the ITA Rankings. Led by the No. 4 rated player in the country, sophomore Maegan Manasse, Cal finished 95-31 (.753) in dual matches in 2014-15.  Manasse finished the year 12-4 overall at No. 1 singles and earned the first singles All-America honor of her career.

The doubles lineup doesn't get any easier, with all three pairings ranked in the top 50, including fifth and seventh. The fifth-ranked tandem, Zsofi Susanyi and Klara Fabikova went an astounding 31-6 overall as a pairing while Manasse and Denise Starr finished 29-8 to earn the seventh overall ranking in the country.

All the action in Berkeley kicks off on Friday at 4 p.m. EST, as the Bulldogs look to make history when they take on the Golden Bears in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.