Womens
Tennis Slams Albion, Men Lose Two
by Brian Roche
Oberlin
College tennis began the season proper with the men traveling to
Albion, Mich. on Saturday, Feb. 16 to play both Albion College and
Alma College. The women faced Albion at home on Sunday, Feb. 17.
The womens team began the season in prime fashion with an
impressive 8-1 win over Albion. Junior co-captains Alaina Fotiu-Wojtowicz
and Laura Koehn led the team with wins in both their singles and
doubles matches, respectively. Fotiu-Wojtowicz won the number one
singles match with a score of 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, and Koehn took the
number three match 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.
Head
Coach Don Hunsinger said of the two, We were absolutely thrilled
that Laura Koehn has made such an improvement. It was the best match
shes ever played in her life, both singles and doubles, and
her leadership and improvement out there was magnificent. We can
pretty much always count on Alaina to play well, but she did a great
job in doubles with her new freshman partner [Ary Amerikaner] in
keeping her on track.
Amerikaner also won her number two singles match in three sets with
a score of 6-2, 5-7, 6-2. All of our new people, I think,
performed very well for being nervous and being in their first match,
Hunsinger said.
First-year
Barbara Burkholder, who won her number six singles match 6-4, 6-0,
expressed optimism, saying, I think we did extremely well.
Albion was supposed to be one of our harder teams and we came out
on top. It was a great feeling. The Oberlin women will look
to bring their record to 2-0 when they host to Malone College this
Saturday.
Mens tennis was less successful. The Yeomen suffered a tough
loss in their first match of the day against Albion. Despite a strong
performance from sophomore co-captain Marian Bocek, who lost a close
number one singles match with a score of 7-5, 4-6, 6-1, Oberlin
fell 9-0. The second game of the day against Alma College was equally
difficult, as the men saw another 9-0 result despite strong performances
from Bocek and first-year Nick Ogren.
Sophomore co-captain Jamie Frankel, who, along with fellow sophomore
Lawrence Kimbrough, played the first doubles matches to 8-5 and
8-4 losses against Albion and Alma, respectively, said of the weekends
results, Things didnt go the way we wanted them to,
so it was kind of upsetting to say the least, but things will turn
around this weekend.
Assistant Coach Adam Shoemaker echoed this sentiment, saying that
Saturdays matches were a little disappointing. We were
really nervous going in and that was the disappointing part. We
were so nervous the guys didnt play up to their potential,
but now that weve been through that, I expect a little bit
more out of them in the upcoming matches. Theyve all been
through their first college match. But the guys have been having
some good practices this week and they now know what they have to
do to compete on the college level.
The
team will take this knowledge with them into this Saturdays
home match against Malone College as they look to improve their
record to 1-2. Said coach Shoemaker of last weekends home
match, We had a great crowd at the womens match this
Sunday, and wed like to see the same this coming Saturday.
Both
men and women will compete against Malone College on Saturday, beginning
at 1 p.m. in the John Heisman Club Fieldhouse.
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