The women's tennis team ended a successful fall season on a high note, taking third out of 25 teams in the New England Championships this past weekend at Amherst College. The Jumbos were beaten only by host Amherst, which took second, and perennial powerhouse Williams, which won the entire event.
The Jumbos held onto a second place spot going into the final day of competition. On Sunday, Tufts lost three close matches in the second, third, and fourth singles spots - each to Williams.
Sophomore Iffy Saeed, playing in the fourth singles spot, came the closest to winning out of these three, though she lost in one of the closest matches of the tournament. After losing the first set in a tiebreaker - she dropped the tiebreak 7-2 - Saeed rebounded to win the second set 7-5. Saeed was seeded first in the fourth singles bracket, but her opponent, Williams' Tina Howe was the second seed, so a split of the first two sets was not a disappointment in the least.
The third set went much the same way as the first, as the two women battled to a 6-6 tie, before Howe knocked Saeed out with a 7-3 win in the tie breaker. Saeed had several chances to take the match, but the ball didn't bounce her way.
Freshman Barclay Gang, playing in the third singles bracket, also went three sets before losing to Williams' Tracy Cheung. In Gang's case, the two sets she lost weren't close - she lost both 6-2 - but were sandwiched around an exciting tiebreak win in the second set. Tufts also saw an opportunity to gain points on Amherst and Williams in the second singles division, as junior Erika Lee fell in straight sets, 7-5, 6-2 to Williams' Caroline Wasserman.
Those three losses, while certainly not the entire difference, could have catapulted Tufts over Amherst, which finished two points ahead of the Jumbos.
"We would have liked to take first," coach Jim Watson said. "But it just didn't happen. Had we won those matches against Williams it would have been a different story." Aside from the disappointment of not placing first or second, Watson was happy with the way the girls played. "Everybody fought real hard," Watson said. "I was very proud of the way the girls played."
Tufts got contributions from other players as well, though the finishes were not as high. Playing in the most difficult number one singles bracket, sophomore Katie Nordstrom breezed to the semifinals without dropping a set before falling to Amherst's top-seeded Jamie Cohen 6-3, 6-1. In five singles, sophomore Emily Warshauer matched Nordstrom's semifinal appearance but also fell to an Amherst foe, second seeded Heather Cole, 6-4, 6-2. In the final singles bracket, sophomore Rachel Hammerman also had an easy time of it until the semifinals until she fell in three sets to top-seeded Lord Jeff Paige Lawrence, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4.
There were three doubles flights as well, though no Jumbo team advanced to the semifinals. In the number one doubles bracket, Nordstrom and Lee won their first two matches but eventually lost in the quarters, 9-7, to an unseeded Wesleyan team. In the second doubles, Gang and Warshauer found one more round of success before falling 8-3 in the semis to the Amherst team. Juniors Heather Rich and Daniella Fontecilla, the two members of the travelling squad not to play singles, were ousted in the third round 8-6 by the fourth-seeded team from Bowdoin.
Despite some of the mixed results, Watson was pleased with the team's effort. The women were happy with third place because it means they improved on last year's mark. A season ago the Jumbos took fourth place in the Championships behind Williams, Amherst, and Trinity. This year Tufts was able to beat Trinity by five points to seal third.
"Last year we took fourth place," Sophomore Emily Warshauer said. "So we were happy with third but still a little disappointed. We were neck and neck with Amherst and we could have beaten them. We played a lot of close matches that could have gone either way."
Taking third place in the New England championships has given the Tufts team confidence as it prepares for the second season in the spring, which will end with the NCAA tournament.
"We had a great fall season," Watson said. "And I am looking forward to the spring." One thing that the girls can look forward to is that they will be playing Amherst next spring. "By playing this championship we saw that Amherst was beatable," Warshauer said. "Our goal next spring is to beat Amherst. We are really excited about next spring."
