Women's Tennis Records Historic Victory

Author: Tom McCann

The recent evidence for the coming of the Apocalypse is becoming increasingly compelling as time continues. The Chicago Cubs have advanced to the National League Championship Series, the Boston Red Sox have done the same in the American League and the Middlebury women's tennis team recorded a victory over Williams last week.

It's true, it happened, and it was totally deserved. Having lost each of the last three years to Williams by a score line of 0-9, things did not look good for Middlebury when the Ephs rolled into town. This year however, Middlebury are an entirely different team and stunned Williams with an historic 6-3 victory. Williams are accustomed to winning national championships and so when Jena Siegel '04 co-captained her Panthers to a win over the Ephs she commented that it was "the biggest win I can remember. It's my fourth year on the team and they've beaten us 0-9 every year that I've played. To beat them was huge - it was momentous."

Fellow co-captain Sandy Spring '05 commented, "the key to our success was in being able to win the doubles as it inspired us for the singles." Middlebury were able to take all three doubles matches with Sandy Spring '05 and Jackie Ross '07 defeating a team from Williams 8-5 who were ranked as one of the very best duos in the country last year. The magnitude of that victory was matched by wins for Jena Siegel '04 and Amy Roche '07 who topped an All-American pair 8-4 with another massive victory coming from Kristin Baker '04 and Claire Smyser '07 by the same score line.

In the singles, victories were recorded by Amy Roche '07 (6-4, 6-4), Claire Smyser '07 (6-2, 3-6, 6-4) and Kristin Baker '04 (6-7, 7-6, 10-5), completing Middlebury's six precious victories while Jackie Ross '07 (4-6, 1-6), Sandy Spring '05 (3-6, 4-6) and Lauren Ready '04 (5-7, 6-1, 4-10) all fell in close games. Spring commented that one of the big differences in this Middlebury team to those previous is that the younger players are stepping up and winning huge matches. This was certainly the case against Williams as Amy Roche and Claire Smyser were both able to overcome their opponents, providing two of the three necessary victories from the singles.

The Panthers will now move on to their next match against Colby this coming weekend bursting with confidence. After a confidence building performance against Tufts and a monumental victory over Williams, the women will be a match for anyone. However, keeping the Panthers' feet on the ground, Spring was quick to comment, "While we must take the confidence from the victory against Williams, we must also refocus and concentrate on the next match. We don't want to become vulnerable having just won such a big match." It was a big victory. It was an historic victory and one that has been a long time in coming, but well worth the wait.