Middlebury was stymied on Proctor courts

Author: Anna Furney

The Green Mountains of Vermont served as a pastoral background for the 2008 NESCAC Women's tennis championships this past weekend.

The first serves of the weekend, coming at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, flew off the rackets of none other than the Middlebury Panthers, who were seeded fourth in the tournament. Competitive matches were expected against their opponent Bowdoin, because earlier in the season, on April 12, Middlebury had eked out a 5-4 win. The Polar Bears shook off precedent, however, and Middlebury's home-court advantage did not serve as much of a security net for the Panthers as the women fell to Bowdoin by the same 5-4 score.

Middlebury took a 2-1 lead over the Polar Bears during the day's early play. Although Middlebury's number-one doubles team consisting of Claire Smyser '08 and Elizabeth Emery '09 fell in an 8-1 match, the Panthers' other two doubles teams came out on top. Claire Burke '09 and Jamie Haar '10 rallied from a 6-1 deficit to win, 9-7. Elizabeth Stone '09 and Chandra Kurien '09 proved to be perfect complements to each other's play, winning 8-3.

"Doubles went really well. Claire and Elizabeth are a big hitting team - and their play gave a lot of momentum going into singles matches for the rest of us."

But play in the singles matches left the Panthers on the outside looking in of the single-elimination tournament. Stone, seeded in the sixth spot, came up with a win against Bowdoin's Elizabeth Pedowitz, 6-2, 1-6, 6-0, and her doubles partner Kurien was the only other member of the Middlebury squad to find success in their singles match ups. Kurien, playing number three for Middlebury, topped Kaitlin Raymond, 6-0, 6-2.

"The girl was pretty nervous," said Kurien, "so I was able to get ahead early. I had a lot of positive momentum coming from the successful doubles match that Stone and I won earlier on in the day."

Friday's win for Bowdoin meant another set of matches on Saturday against top-seeded Williams. The Ephs won that best of nine match, only to fall to Amherst in the finals for the second year in a row.

The Middlebury team is still optimistic that their games on Friday will not be their last this spring.

"For now, we're waiting and hoping that we get an NCAA bid," said Kurien. "But I think that the loss was a good reality check. We have a bad taste in our mouth from losing this weekend and we are hoping to avenge the loss in postseason play, assuming we are fortunate enough to get a bid."