NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT - The Marist women's tennis team returned to action and started Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference play with a close loss to the Fairfield Stags, 4-3, Saturday afternoon in a match held at the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center at Yale.

The Red Foxes started the day off strong behind two wins from the doubles teams of Karly Pang (Kaneohe, Hawaii) and Claire Schmitz (Scotia, N.Y.) and Sabrina Tahir (Yonkers, N.Y.) and Callie Morlock (Golden, Colo.) to take the overall doubles point and head into singles play with the early advantage.

Pang helped the Red Foxes start off just as strong in singles play as she defeated Fairfield's Allison Radde in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5 to give the Red Foxes a 2-0 advantage in the match. The Stags Sarah Stuhlmann would get Fairfield a singles point with a victory over the Red Foxes Melissa Carlay (New Hyde Park, N.Y.) but Marist's Claire Schmitz responded with a 6-3, 6-4 straight set victory over Fairfield's Nicole Aragones to stretch the Marist lead to 3-1. 

Fairfield took the final three matches, including a three set thriller between Fairfield's Kaila Nelson and Marist's Nikki Rohan (Mountain Lakes, N.J.) to tie the overall match score at 3-3, and then the match deciding point due to an injury to the Red Foxes Katie Sietz (Pennington, N.J.), who was forced to withdraw. 

The Red Foxes return home and open up conference play against Rider on Sunday, March. 28 at 12 P.M.

1. Karly Pang/Claire Schmitz (M) def. Allison Radde/Karen McKehough (F), 8-4

2. Sabrina Tahir/Callie Morlock (M) def. Nicole Aragones/Sarah Stuhlmann (F), 8-3

3. Helen Abbot/Erika Nannery (F) def. Katie Seitz/Nikki Rohan (M), 8-4

1. Karly Pang (M) def. Allison Radde (F), 6-3, 7-5

2. Sarah Stuhlmann (F) def. Melissa Carlay (M), 6-3, 6-4

3. Claire Schmitz (M) def. Nicole Aragones (F), 6-3, 6-0

4. Helen Abbot (F) def. Callie Morlock (M), 6-1, 6-4

5. Kaila Nelson (F) def. Nikki Rohan (M), 6-4, 7-6(7-4), 6-3

6. Erika Nannery (F) def. Katie Seitz (M), 1-4, (Default,Injury)