“Spring is when you work as a team.”
Those eight words from junior Akane Kokubo basically sum up what the spring means for the squad.
Although spring seems far away for many, it is right around the corner for the women’s tennis team, which will play host to Colgate tomorrow at the Reis Tennis Center.
After a fall season of invitationals, where players are focused on winning their singles matches or their doubles matches, spring is the beginning of the dual meet season, and an emphasis on team play.
“We’re having really good team bonding,” noted Kokubo, “Instead of last year when we switched around partners, this year we are sticking to one person.
The greater cohesiveness between partners was evident in the Cornell Winter Invitational held two weekends ago. The duo of senior Laura Leigh Tallent and sophomore Liying Wang defeated a mixed team consisting of Miriam Rahali of Columbia and freshman Nisha Suda of the Red to win the Flight B doubles title.
Junior Melissa Tu and her partner, sophomore Mollie Edinson, took the Flight A consolation title, defeating a team of sophomore Molly Condit and senior Lucia Aniello, 8-4. The Flight A doubles championship was won by the Army team of Marissa Limsiaco and Ali del Moral, which defeated Kokubo and junior Erika Takeuchi, 8-3, in the finals.
Kokubo and Takeuchi defeated a pair from UMBC, 8-6, in a semifinal match-up to reach the finals.
Individually, the Red had nobody in the running for the championship going into day three of the tournament. Yet, the Red took two consolation finals — one by freshman Kasia Preneta, who defeated Pan Chavez of Army in straight sets, and the other by Takeuchi in the Flight A consolation, by defeating freshman Dasha Leonyuk after dropping the first set.
Takeuchi defeated Tia Kaasalainen in straight sets, 6-0, 6-3, to reach the consolation finals.
Archived article by Chris Mascaro