The Cardinals shined on Wednesday against NESCAC opponent Connecticut College, gaining a 7-2 victory on the road against a team that has proved formidable competition for Wesleyan in recent years. The Cards fell to the Camels last year by the count of 5-4.
“We are really happy with our win against Connecticut,” said Alex Sirois ’09. “We’ve lost the last two years when we expected to trounce them, so today was awesome.”
Sirois dominated sixth-seeded Lacey Herchek 6-0, 6-2 in her singles match.
“I played consistently and used my net game as usual,” Sirois said. “I placed the ball and waited for the error as well as used my offensive game to win points.”
In other singles action, top-seeded Rachael Ghorbani ’09 faltered 4-6, 3-6 against Becca Heupel. Second seed Ania Preneta ’09 had another strong outing, defeating Elyssa Emsellem 6-1, 7-6. Madalina Ursu ’09 played third-seeded Danielle Coleman and pulled out a solid 6-2, 6-3 victory. Fifth-seeded Linda McDougal ’11 dominated over Kari Barklis in her 6-1, 6-0 victory. Fourth-seeded Casey Simchik ’10 struggled in her singles match, eventually falling 2-6, 1-6 to the Camels’ Jessica Bender.
After the match with Conn., only Sirois and McDougal stand undefeated this season in singles action.
Despite these successes, the Cards truly shined in doubles play. The top-seeded tandem of Ursu and Anika Fischer ’10 defeated Heupel and Bender 8-6. Sirois teamed with Ghorbani for an 8-4 doubles victory over Coleman and Barklis.
“We had a rough start—down 1-4,” Sirois said. “And then we won 7 games straight for the win. We stopped making stupid errors and played more consistently. We have been working on more strategic set-ups and signaling, which helped us a lot today.”
Preneta and team captain Elizabeth Collector ’09 rounded out the team victories with an 8-5 win against the third doubles pair of Emsellem and Herchek.
This victory brings the Cards’ overall record to 2-1 in dual-match play this season.
Next for the team is a home match against Colby-Sawyer on Friday at 3:30 p.m.
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