The women’s tennis team ended its season on Sunday with a NESCAC victory over Bates College. The Cardinals finished their season with an 11-6 overall record, securing their fourth straight winning campaign for the first time in team history.
Wesleyan decisively handled Bates and secured a 7-2 victory. In singles play, the Cards dominated with five straight-set victories coming from the hard hitting of Ania Preneta ’09 (No. 2; 6-4, 6-4), Sarah Miller ’12 (No. 3; 7-6, 6-1), Linda McDougal ’11 (No. 4; 6-4, 6-1), Meredith Holmes ’10 (No. 5; 6-2, 7-6) and Casey Simchik ’10 (No. 6; 7-6, 6-0). In doubles play, Miller and Anika Fischer ’10 added another tally to their impressive doubles record with an 8-6 win. Preneta and McDougal also gave the Cards a win with a score of 8-3.
Despite wet ink still on the record books from making team history, the Cardinals missed out on the playoffs this year. The women ended the season ranked seventh in the NESCAC and were not one of the six teams qualifying for the post-season tournament.
“We are disappointed that we did not move forward to post season play,” Holmes said. “But we did have a great season finishing with a winning record.”
The Cardinals move forward to next season losing four seniors: Rachael Ghorbani ’09, Preneta, Alex Sirois ’09 and Madalina Ursu ’09.
“We are going to miss the presence of our seniors next year,” Holmes said.
Despite losing four, the team is retaining the bulk of its squad. Miller and Holmes will help the team prepare for a new season after notable achievement with singles records of 13-4 and 10-6, respectively.
Wesleyan also looks to continue to improve its doubles play next season.
“We realized this season how important doubles are in matches,” Miller said. “We put a lot of emphasis on practicing doubles strategies, which definitely benefited us. If our doubles play continues to strengthen then we will have a much better season next year. Fortunately, we had some good wins this year, which proves how strong we are.”
Despite the key personnel losses, the outlook for the Cardinals next year is strong.
“We’re gaining some really strong freshmen, so we should do really well,” Miller continued. “We’re hoping to beat Tufts and Trinity next year, because we had a good shot at beating them this season.”
The Cardinals look to make team history again next season with a fifth consecutive winning campaign. This can certainly be achieved with hard work in the off-season and with the strong leadership of rising seniors Holmes, Simchik and Fischer.
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