The Lawrence women’s tennis team met their opponent Monmouth College on the Viking’s court last Saturday and dominated 9-0. The Monmouth Fighting Scots were short-handed, with only four girls to compete, resulting by default in two singles and one doubles wins for Lawrence. The Vikings also took on Cornell College that Saturday and fell 6-3 in the match.
Junior player Gayatri Malhotra approved of the team’s outstanding play on Saturday. She said, “Our match against Monmouth went really well. I think since the team hadn’t played a match for about a week, we had enough time to work on our game. We won all the doubles and all the singles. Since Monmouth didn’t have enough players, we played two doubles and four singles.”
The Vikings held control over the doubles without losing a game. Sophomore Hannah Geoffrey and freshman Ali Heiring won 8-0 for No. 1 doubles, and juniors Polly Dalton and Malhotra went 8-0 for No. 2 doubles. Freshmen Megan Occhino and Perrin Tourangeau slid through for No. 3 doubles without competitors for a default win.
Commenting on the team’s chemistry, Malhotra feels the women are playing strong in the doubles: “Doubles is going very well. Hannah Geoffrey and Ali Heiring make a great doubles team as our ones. They have a great chemistry on the court that keep them focused but still have fun. Polly and I are also doing well. Polly is great at the net and I’m good at the baseline so we’re a good match up.”
The Lawrence Vikings also dominated in the singles play over the Fighting Scots. No. 1 doubles Christina Schaupp defeated Monmouth’s Kristen Huffman 6-0, 6-1. Geoffrey and Hiering defeated their opponents 6-1, 6-0, and sophomore Allison Juda highlighted the singles with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Monmouth’s Christine Peterson.
The team’s trainer, senior Shannon Murray, acknowledged the team’s progress and hard work so far: “The tennis team is really beginning to show their true colors in how they fought against Monmouth. Only being their trainer, I can even tell how much their dedication and talent is paying off.”
The Vikings put up a good fight against Cornell, but came up short for a 6-3 loss.
Lawrence took two of the six singles matches. No. 2 singles Malhotra defeated Cornell’s Alyssa Zavislak 6-3, 1-6, 1-0 (11-9) and No. 5 singles Dalton defeated Cornell’s Ellie Purdy 6-3, 6-0. For No. 3 doubles, Schaupp and sophomore Tess Vogel won 8-4.
Malhotra commented on the duo, “Christina and Tess are actually roommates and I think they make a very calm and collected team for the third doubles. They just recently started playing together and its been going very smooth for them.”
The women’s tennis team will return to play Oct. 3 at Carroll and Oct. 5 against Ripon on the Lawrence courts.