Women's tennis: Lord Jeffs bounce back with win at Wellesley
By Joe Katuska, Senior Sports Consultant
The women's tennis team rebounded with a convincing win over Wellesley College on Saturday after slipping to sixth place in the NESCAC Championships over the weekend.

The Jeffs, who fell to seventh place nationally, were attempting to bounce back from a number of disappointing finishes. They got the job done, taking home an 8-1 victory over the Blue.

The Jeffs' dominated doubles play, an area of inconsistency through the season. All three doubles teams won, with Wellesley unable to win more than three games in any match.

The Jeffs took that same momentum into their singles play, taking five of the six matches. Co-captain Stephanie Fong '02 led the way at the first singles spot, taking home a 6-2, 6-2 win. Sensation Rachel Holt '05, who was named the NESCAC Freshman of the Year, took the second singles match 6-2, 6-2 and co-captain Heather Cole '02 took a tough three-set win in the third singles match. The only Jeff loss of the day came in fourth singles where Wallis Molchen '04 was unable to pull out a three-set duel. The Jeffs responded with straight-set wins in fifth and sixth singles by Tristan Hedrick '05 and Roopali Agarwal '03, respectively.

Three members of the team, Fong, Holt and Hedrick, were named to the All-NESCAC Second Team this week.

"Rachel [Holt] has been playing phenomenal tennis this year," said Cole. "She has been beating a lot of good players and she deserves this award."

This weekend, the Jeffs will host Williams College. The Ephs are led by Selma Kikic, the NESCAC Player of the Year, and are coming off a first place finish at the NESCAC Championships.

"Williams has a great team this year and they will be tough to beat," said Cole. "But we have been working hard all year and we can win the match."

After this weekend the Jeffs will head to NCAA Regional play, hoping to extend their recent run of four straight Final Four appearances.

"If we keep working hard and playing well together, we can make it back to Nationals," said Cole.

Issue 25, Submitted 2002-05-01 11:39:02