Frustrated after a season-opening defeat, the Oberlin College women’s tennis team took it out on Malone College Saturday, defeating the Pioneers 9-0 to improve their record to 1-1.
Coach Don Hunsinger had good things to say about the victory.
“Overall it was a good performance,” he said. “I think from top to bottom we performed very well especially at second doubles.”
The second doubles team of senior Laura Koehn and first-year Kate Lurain shut out their Malone College counterparts 8-0, after losing 8-2 the previous week at third doubles.
Coming into the weekend, Oberlin was a bit dissatisfied with how things went in their first match against Albion College. This day was a different story as Oberlin won all three doubles matches while only losing three games, and then swept the singles while only dropping 14 games in six matches.
A 3-0 start after the doubles competitions helped propel the Yeowomen to the win as well as to build confidence.
Though Oberlin’s dominance took the excitement out of the match from the start, assistant coach Adam Shoemaker added that there was still room for improvement.
“There are always things we can do better,” he said. “Overall, it was a good performance. We are making strides every day on different things.”
The singles proved to be similarly dominant, as Oberlin managed to win every match in easy fashion en route to another sweep.
First-year Lesley Farber got her first collegiate victory at sixth singles by a score of 6-3, 6-3.
“It was great to win against Malone, and especially to have everyone contribute,” sophomore Ary Amerikaner said. “I also felt like I played well, which is a bonus.”
Senior Alaina Fotiu-Wojtowicz moved her singles mark to 2-0 while she and her partner, Amerikaner, improved to 2-0 on the young season at first flight doubles.
Next week the Yeowomen take on Otterbein College in a non-conference home match on Saturday, though the scheduled competition with Ohio Dominican College, originally slated for Sunday, has been cancelled.
While acknowledging that the play against Malone was solid, Hunsinger deemed the upcoming match to be a truer measure of his team’s progress this season.
“This should be a better test of whether we have had any improvements from week one,” he said.