April 16, 2008

GREENVILLE, S.C. -

By Willie T. Smith, Greenville News

During a recent Furman University women's tennis match, Laura Gioia sneaked a quick glance down the courts to check out the progress of her teammates.

Considering the way her match was going, it was understandable.

Barely breaking a sweat, Gioia, a junior and the Paladins' No. 1 singles player, dispatched her opponent 6-0, 6-0.

That outcome has become commonplace since Gioia joined the Paladins three years ago, which was about one year after she found out Furman existed.

"Lauren visited five schools -- William & Mary and Indiana were two," Furman coach Debbie Southern said of Gioia, who was the 12th-rated player in Florida as a senior. "They were all offering her scholarships. We were just very fortunate to get her. She is the cream of the crop."

Gioia, who has a 3.8 grade-point average as a pre-med major and hopes to become a dentist, is 53-15 at Furman, including 23-3 in Southern Conference matches. Ten of those losses, including two in the conference, came during her freshman season. She was the league's freshman of the year in 2006 and player of the year in 2007. This year's SoCon awards will be announced at the league tournament, which begins in Charleston on Friday.

"I think this is probably one of my best years," Gioia said. "I am older, an upperclassman, so I have gotten used to the competition in college. ... Some girls are (ranked) ahead of me, but I feel I can beat players who are ranked high, which gives me and my team a lot of confidence."

Furman enters the SoCon tournament as the top seed and riding an 88-match regular-season winning streak in SoCon play. Its last loss in the league came in the 2003 SoCon tournament. The Paladins have won 59 straight league matches since. Gioia says the Paladins don't feel any pressure from the streak.

"Each year we want it even more because the more we win, we know how hungry people are to beat us," Gioia said. "That makes us want to beat them even more."

Perhaps the only negative attached to the winning streak is the reaction from conference opponents. Before one match at Appalachian State, the Paladins were stretching in Mountaineers' sports medical center when the football team walked in, Gioia said.

"They saw that we were Furman. They really hate Furman, I guess," she said. "They were heckling us -- 'You're not going to beat our team.' They were really not very nice to us."