Women’s tennis adds two wins to tally

The women’s tennis team traveled to Maine this weekend for a pair of away wins. These victories will advance the 10th ranked Panthers to five game winning streak and an 8-1 record.
The weekend started at Bowdoin College where they defeated the Polar Bears 6-3. In the number one singles spot, Victoria Aiello ’12 lost in two hard fought sets to Bowdoin’s Kellen Alberstone. Despite the loss at the number one spot, the Panthers were able to capture the second, third and fourth singles spots. Leah Kepping ’13 won 6-3, 6-2 in the number two spot against Emily Lombardi. Brittany Faber ’13 played two extremely close sets against Emma Lewis winning 7-5 in both.
In the number four singles spot was Sally Wilkey ’12 who beat out her opponent 6-4, 6-4. Chantalle Lavetu was able to beat out Anna Burke ’12 for a win at the number 5 singles spot. Rounding out the singles matches was Dorrie Paradies ’14 who beat out her opponent in an extremely close match.
The first set went to Paradies, 6-1, but what could by that set seem to be an easy win was turned around in the second set when Susanna Howard outplayed Paradies, winning 3-6. Despite the loss in the second set Paradies came out with a well earned win in the third set, winning 7-6.
Middlebury’s doubles teams went 2-1 with Bowdoin’s double teams. Alberstone and Kate Winingham of Bowdoin were able to beat the Panther’s number one team comprised of Kepping and Faber, in a close 9-7 match. Aiello and Burke teamed up at the number two doubles spot, to beat out Lombardi and Lewis 8-5. At the number three spot were Wilkey and Paradies who beat out there opponents, Lavetu and Hannah Hoerner 8-6.
After some hard fought matches at Bowdoin, the team traveled to Bates on Sunday where they were able to sweep them 9-0. At the number one, two and three spot the matches were one in an easy two sets, none giving up more that three games to their opponents. In the number four and five singles spots Paradies and Whitney Hanson ’11  won in hard fought matches.
Paradies played at the number four spot against Erika Blauth. Despite an easy 6-3 win in the first set, it was only after three tiebreakers that Paradies pulled ahead of Blauth to win 7-6 in the final set. Hanson won her first match by just one game, 7-6, but was able to pull away in the second match winning 6-2 to beat out Nicole Russell.
The team played Williams at home on Wednesday but scores were not available at press time. The team will have three more NESCAC matches before the beginning of the NESCAC tournament on May 6. The women will be playing on the road at Tufts on Friday. The following weekend they have two matches back to back at home. On Saturday the team will play Skidmore on Saturday and Amherst on Sunday.
Unlike this year, last year the team played Skidmore early in the season and beat them out 8-1. However they will play Amherst last this season just as they did last season. In their last game before the start of the NESCAC tournament the Panthers lost in a very close match 5-4 before beating out Bowdoin in the NESCAC quarterfinals at Amherst. The team then fell in the semifinals to Wililams 5-1. Despite this loss the team advanced to the NCAA regionals before ending their season. The Panthers will look to improve on last year’s result with the end of this season.