Monday, September 17, 2012

Women's Matches vs. UW-La Crosse and Wheaton College

This weekend the UW-Whitewater Women's tennis team headed down to Wheaton, IL to play two tough opponents, The University of Wisconsin La Crosse and Wheaton College. Both teams have been historically tough and Wheaton beat the Lady 'Hawks the last time they traveled to Wheaton so our girls knew they would be in for two battles.

The first match of the day for the Lady 'Hawks was against UW-La Crosse. La Crosse got several good new players in this year and return a good number of their players for last year. In doubles, all of the Lady 'Hawk doubles teams got off to a good start getting an early break in every match. those proved to be enough as the Lady 'Hawks won all three doubles matches to take a 3-0 lead heading into singles. All of the ladies played tremendously in their first sets. Jackie Vitale had the closest first set winning 6-4. Jackie showed a lot of mental toughness in the first set. She was up 5-2 before her opponent put together 2 tough games to make the set score 5-4, but Jackie found her mojo and won the set. No Lady 'Hawk dropped more than 1 game in the second set to close out the 9-0 victory over UW-La Crosse. For individual match scores click here.

The Lady 'Hawks weren't able to rest after that great match tough. The girls had to prepare against a tough regionally ranked opponent in Wheaton College. The doubles started off strong for the Lady 'Hawks again all 3 doubles teams jumped out to early breaks. Wheaton kept fighting in every doubles match, but the Lady 'Hawks were just too tough again and pulled out all 3 doubles matches. With all 3 doubles matches won by the Lady 'Hawks they turned to singles to close out the victory and avenge the 405 loss they suffered 2 years ago. The ladies played strong again in singles including great wins by Alexandra Bayliss at 2 singles, Jackie Vitale at 3 singles, Megan Kasten at 4 singles, and Lauren Aguilar at 5 singles. Together these 4 ladies dropped a total of 10 games in their 8 sets. The 1 and 6 singles spots were the toughest for the Lady 'Hawks. Abby Day has been playing great this season and earned herself a shot at the 6 singles spot against Wheaton. Her opponent was a new freshman but she was extremely tough. Abby fought the whole match, but just couldn't come up with the offense when she need it and she fell 2-6, 0-6. The 1 singles match was extremely long and extremely entertaining. Sydney Divelbiss found herself playing almost a mirror copy of herself. Sydney won a long first et 6-4, but her opponent captured the momentum in the second set, and forced the match to a decisive third set tiebreaker. Sydney played lights out at the beginning of the tiebreaker and never looked back winning the third set tiebreaker 10-2. This capped off a terrific 8-1 victory for the Lady 'Hawks. For individual match scores click here.

These were two great victories over tough teams for the Lady 'Hawks. These two victories push the Lady 'Hawks record on the season to 5-0, and it's great to see all the ladies step up to fill the voids left by the departures of Kalla Schaefer and Annie Smith. Next up for the Lady 'Hawks is the ITA Tournament in St. Peter, MN next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Last year the Lady 'Hawks won the singles and doubles draw to send 2 players down to Mobile, AL to represent the Midwest. It will be tough to repeat those results, but I know our ladies will work hard all week to do so.

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