By Nick Wright
Collegian Staff
The Massachusetts tennis team concluded the fall portion of its schedule this past weekend, when three of the squad’s members competed in the regional ITA Championships held in Cambridge, Mass.
Sophomore Stephanie Price took part in the singles for the Minutewomen while junior captain Susan Hyams teamed up with sophomore Sasha Edelstein to play in the doubles part of the tournament.
Neither Price nor Hyams and Edelstein in the doubles could make the main draw. Despite early successes they could not make it through the qualifying rounds.
“We were hoping to get into the main draw,” Hyams said. “It’s [the] luck of the draw, sometimes you get a seed early on sometimes you don’t.”
The Minutewomen last played a competitive match on the Oct. 2, when they suffered a 5-2 loss to Connecticut. Subsequent games against Marist and St John’s were rained out.
“I think it was unfortunate we had those two games cancelled, at the time everyone was healthy and playing well,” Hyams said.
“The team is in pretty good shape.”
This lack of competitive playing time was not initially evident as both Price in the singles and Hyams and Edelstein in the doubles started the tournament with impressive wins.
In the first round of qualifying, Price dropped only one game and defeated Catlin Link of Rutgers 6-1, 6-0. Price, though, could not repeat this feat in the last 16, where she faced Rachael Williams of Brown. Price won a close first set 7-5 but lost the next two sets 6-3, 6-1 to crash out of the competition.
In the doubles, Hyams and Edelstein won their qualifying round of 16 match up by defeating the Dartmouth pairing of Ann Scott and Evelyn Stevens, 8-3, but met stiffer opposition in the quarterfinals, and were defeated 8-3 by the Syracuse team of Daniela Kaluskova and Wei-Ming Leong.
The tournament marks the end of the fall season for the team and there have been some highlights along the way. In particular, Stephanie Price winning the number two flight singles at the Eastern Collegiate women’s tennis championships on Sept. 15. At the same championships Sasha Edelstein reached the final of the number one flight singles, only to lose the championship match.
The Minutewomen finished the fall season 1-1 in dual match play as scheduled contests against Marist and St John’s were washed out due to rain.
Their spring schedule is much busier with, weather permitting, a scheduled 18 dual match contests to look forward to.
The Maroon and White return to action on Feb. 8 against Harvard.
