The women’s tennis team finished sixth at the Liberty League Championships held last weekend at Vassar College.
The Yellowjackets, who entered the match seeded sixth out of eight, lost in the opening round to Hamilton College, 6-0. Although this seems like a tough loss, senior and co-captain Tessa Baker thought that it was a good match.
“Although the scores against Hamilton don’t necessarily show it, the girls fought hard and played well,” Baker said.
The Yellowjackets advanced to the consolation round by default to Union College.
The tournament, which suffered scheduling issues due to bad weather was running extremely behind. If Union had not defaulted, the match against UR would have begun at 2:35 a.m.
In the fifth place match, UR was defeated by William Smith, 5-1. At No. 1 doubles, sophomores Colleen Cross and Alexa Perry had an outstanding match, defeating Meghan Kelly and Chelsea Rauck, 8-0. At No. 2 doubles, senior and co-captain Jaymi Della and freshman Jill Grieshaber were defeated, 8-1, by Katie Campbell and Cory Turner. Baker and freshman Melinda Beckmann lost a close match as the No. 3 doubles team, falling to Erinn Cain and Tara Ware, 8-5.
Cross lost in three sets at No. 1 singles, 6-3, 2-6, 4-6, to Rauck. Ware defeated Della, 6-1, 6-1 at No. 3, and Turner defeated Grieshaber, 6-3, 6-4 at No. 4. Since the matches are played to decision,the other three singles matches did not finish.
Perry lost the first set at No. 2 singles 6-2, but was tied in the second set, 4-4 when the match was called. Beckmann, at No. 5, won the opening set, 6-4 and was down 5-4 in the second when play was halted. At No. 6, Baker won the opening set, 6-3 lost the second set, 6-1 and was just beginning her third set.
“We would have liked to have finished a little higher, but we played very hard,” Baker said. “I think in particular, Alexa and Colleen played really good doubles. After having taken off almost two seasons from playing together they came back this weekend to crush William Smith and they almost defeated Hamilton.”
This was the team’s last match of the fall season. UR’s regular season takes off in the spring and the girls feel that they will be ready to handle the competition.
“We had a short season, with only three matches for the entire team, so hopefully in the spring when the younger members have had more experience, we will come back stronger,” Della said. “We plan on working very hard in the off-season and are really looking forward to our spring season.”
“We all know what we need to work on and hopefully a productive off-season will prepare us for a successful spring,” Cross added.
Sall can be reached at dsall@campustimes.org.
