Women's tennis weary from week

String of matches priming women for season remainder

Keeping a busy schedule, the women's tennis team played themselves out, losing three matches over the weekend to Albion College, Hope College and Kalamazoo College as part of the Great Lake College Association matches. The team ended their run of matches on Wednesday when they tied against the College of Wooster.

The long week is finally over and the team is happy with the way that they performed at the GLCA. "I think we've improved because we played the really tough teams and lost, rather than playing the mediocre teams and winning," said first-year Robin Richardson who lost three singles matches and three doubles matches over the weekend. "I think my best match was at Albion even though I didn't get many games. I've improved my footwork and I've improved mentally," said Richardson.

The team lost 1-8 to Albion, 0-9 to Hope, 1-8 to Kalamazoo and tied 3-3 with Wooster.

Even Coach Don Hunsinger was pleased with the way that the team played at the GLCA. "The Spring Break schedule and the week after contain sensational tennis matches. The competition is exceptional. The other teams are just so good that we get to test our skills," said Hunsinger. "The team played up to the expectation."

At Albion the player of the match was junior Leigh Ann Totty who won the only winning game for Oberlin 6-2, 7-4 with a tie-breaker of 7-4. Brockelman and Petersen played a close doubles match barely losing 8-7 with a tie-breaker of 7-4.

At Kalamazoo the player of the match was sophomore Jill Brockelman who lost her singles match in three sets but, "played an outstanding game," said Hunsinger. Brockelman and senior Kate Petersen played an exciting doubles game coming back from 0-5 to win the game 9-7.

Junior Tara Sievers said that the team improved on several aspects of their game, such as doubles. Sievers said, "I played the best I could at that time. I took a couple of chances, risks with my style of playing which was good."

"Those were challenging matches," said Totty of the GLCA weekend, "they made us realize what we had to work on and do in order to win conference matches, it was a good pre-conference tournament."

Hunsinger is happy with the team's effort at the matches but said that the team needs to work on consistency.

Totty believes that the team's potential strong points is their doubles playing, "I think it's a plus being able to go into singles matches having won doubles matches, it could be one of our strengths." Of her own playing Totty said, "I had weaknesses in my game that affected closing up a point in the matches which made it difficult to win, it was a tournament fallout."

At Wooster the team's playing improved but the match had to be stopped early because they were rained out.

"At Wooster we came back to win singles, we were proud of ourselves. We would have beaten them if it hadn't rained," said Sievers.

The player of the match at Wooster was Sievers who Hunsinger said, "won a tough three set match 6-3, 1-6, 7-5. Sievers and Totty were behind in doubles and came back to win that match 9-7." Hunsinger also said that the biggest improvement overall was Petersen, "from game two on in her first set she was totally focused but she didn't get to finish her game because of the weather."

Concerning the team's overall play, the Coach said, "we've improved and they continue to make an effort to improve."