The women’s tennis team’s seven-match winning streak came to a halt after a 7-2 defeat at the hands of Williams College this Saturday.
The Lions were only able to win one doubles match and one singles match as they lost for the first time all season to the No.1 team in Division III.
“Williams was a tough opponent, but everyone played well and had a great attitude,” said junior Felice Trinh. “I think we put up a good fight.”
Trinh and fellow junior Emily Petersack defeated senior Lucy Marchese and junior Caroline Capute 8-3 in third doubles to open the meet.
“(Felice and I) took our time in between points to talk about what we did right and wrong, and our communication really helped us end up on top,” Petersack said.
“We are close friends off the court as well, which creates a positive team chemistry on the court to stay cohesive and accomplish our goal to win.”
In other double matches, junior Kristin Alotta and senior Nicole Reich of Williams defeated first doubles sophomores Karisse Bendijo and Allison Tierney 8-4.
The sophomore duo of Paige Aiello and Lauren Balsamo fell to junior Taylor French and sophomore Nancy Worley, 8-1.
Tierney was able to go 1-1 on her matches for the day, as she edged out Reich at the third singles spot. She won in two sets 6-2, 7-6 (7-1). Tierney has had experience playing Reich before and said she didn’t let the No. 1 ranking of Williams bother her.
“I tried not to worry so much about winning and losing and just went out there and had fun and gave it everything I had,” Tierney said.
In the remaining singles matches, the Lions fought hard but came up short.
Alotta defeated Bendijo in first singles 6-1, 6-0. Trinh’s loss to Worley in second singles ended with the same results.
Aiello won the most sets in her defeat to Marchese, having identical 6-3 sets. Freshman Kara Shoemaker of Williams played her only match of the day against Balsamo in fifth singles, winning 6-3, 6-0.
Capute defeated Petersack in the sixth singles spot in match 6-1 sets.
While the Lions lost this week, their attitude continues to remain positive.
“We will all take our loss as a learning experience,” Petersack said. “I know that for me it showed aspects of my game that I need to improve on, and I am sure that our practices are going to include a lot of consistency drills like we have been doing already. We will continue to work hard and improve and focus more on outlasting our opponents.”
The Lions’ next match is against New York University on Friday, March 25.
