STARKVILLE – The third and final day of the third-annual John Cade Invitational saw some Mississippi State players win their respective brackets to close things out on Sunday.
Dharani Niroshan and Alessia Tagliente claimed the West bracket doubles championship with their 8-3 win over Louisville’s Germany Davis and Jamilah Snells. On the singles side of things, Athina Pitta won the White North final by downing Ana Rodrigues of Louisiana Tech 6-4, 1-6, 1-0[8].
Maria Rizzolo also took home third place in the White bracket after her 6-4, 5-7, 1-0[5] victory against Olivia Malm of North Texas.
“I want to give a major shoutout to the girls for really trusting and buying in to what we’re trying to build,” said head coach Chris Hooshyar. “Attitude comes first. The quote that we go by is ‘performance doesn’t affect the attitude, attitude affects the performance’. That’s what the identity of this team is going to be. For the future players out there, if they want to join a program where they can make a name for themselves and want to be challenged, then this is the place to be.”
The Bulldogs finished the tournament with 14 total victories and are continuing to trend in the right direction under Hooshyar and his staff during their first fall in Starkville.
“I’m proud of the girls this week,” Hooshyar said. “We absolutely did not have the results that we wanted, but we talked about building our foundation and our culture. A lot of the singles matches that we lost were three-setters and we’ve talked about always staying in the fight. We can’t control the outcome, but we can control the manner in which we compete and I thought our attitudes and physicality were on display. The improvements are being shown. They’ve made huge strides.”
Although the John Cade Invitational concluded individual competition for most of the team, Pitta and doubles partner Alexandra Mikhailuk still have one event remaining this fall. And it certainly is a big one as the duo represents MSU at the ITA National Fall Championships in San Diego, California beginning on Wednesday.
Mikhailuk and Pitta qualified for the prestigious tournament by becoming the first Bulldog pairing to win the ITA Southern Regional Championship in program history earlier this month in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
John Cade Invitational
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