The women's tennis team sent three players to represent the Midwest Region at this past weekend's ITA Small College National Championships in Sumter, SC. Megan Humphreys earned a spot in the singles draw by winning the ITA Midwest Regional Singles title in September. Bridgid McGuire and Alicia Beck earned their spot by winning the ITA Midwest Regional Doubles title.
What a great experience it was! Megan Humphreys set new heights for the Warhawk Tennis Program placing 2nd place at the event! McGuire/Beck went 0-3 to finish 8th, but the freshmen duo gained incredible experience and match play that should help them down the road as we will be playing so many great teams and events later in the season. We are certainly proud of all three of them reaching this prestigious event and it was a great week to be a Warhawk!
Humphreys showed very solid mental toughness throughout the tournament, and had to rely on her recent new sources of offense to reach the finals. All three of her opponents were big hitters, and she was able to neutralize them with her speed and consistency and finish points when she got the chance to attack. In her first match vs the #2 seed from Texas Lutheran she was down 2-6, 1-5 on the brink of losing when she dug in and pounded out the next 6 games to take the second set 7-5. She was then again down 1-3 in the third set, before rolling off the next five games for the win. In her second match against Vassar, she faced different adversity. She won the first set, then her opponent really hit her stride and played great tennis evening the match. Humphreys took a 4-1 lead then, but Vassar brought it back to 4-3, before Humphreys sealed the deal. In the Championship match Humphreys was being drilled corner to corner by Johns Hopkins' Rao with huge forehands and she dropped the first set 6-2. She then caught up to the speed of the match, playing flawless tennis, evening the match with a 6-3 second set of her own. In the decisive third set Humphreys fell behind 1-3. She kept fighting getting it back to 4-4, before Rao went to her weapons and hit three winners in the final game for a 6-4 third set victory. For her grit and sportsmanship, Humphreys was also awarded the tournament's sportsmanship award winner (across 4 divisions).
In doubles McGuire/Beck drew the top seeded team from Claremont, CA in the first round and fell 6-0, 6-2. In the second round they played Emory. They started off slowly got down 6-1, 4-1, then started playing good tennis but fell 6-1, 6-3. In their final match they started to play a little more loosely but fell to a solid team from NYU 6-2, 6-1. It took a little while for our freshman team to get used to the strong competition, but like I said, it's an experience that they will certainly grow from, and they took it all
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