Valparaiso took to the courts Saturday for the opening day of play in the IPFW Mastodon Invitational held in Fort Wayne, Ind.

The Crusaders managed just two singles wins on the opening day of play, with all of the singles flights being round-robin events.

Kim Sajevic (Woodbury, Minn./Woodbury H.S.) split her two matches in flight number two.  Her first match saw her rally for a 1-6, 7-6 (3), 11-9 victory over Theadora Kotsiou of Evansville before falling 6-1, 6-1 to Detroit’s Zeljka Minic.

Jackie O’Reilly (DePere, Wis./DePere H.S.) earned the Crusaders’ only other win on the afternoon.  The sophomore dropped a tough three-set match to open the day in flight nine, 2-6, 6-1, 10-8 to Payal Sharma of Evansville, but rallied to defeat Ashley Hunter of IPFW 4-6, 6-0, 10-3.

“I have been impressed with some of our play,” head coach Jay Adams said.  “We have exposed some errors that we need to work on though.”

Play at the weekend event will wrap up on Sunday with the first matches beginning at 8 a.m. CDT.