Hansen, Hoover Lead Women’s Tennis Over Tough Colby College
The women’s tennis team returned home from Colby College on Saturday with a 7-2 win, bringing its overall season record to 10-3. The team’s national ranking rose from 23rd to 20th in the country.
The match began with the doubles teams taking the courts. Mariah N. Hoover ’08 and Leslie A. Hansen ’10 finished with a decisive win, 8-1. Elizabeth A. Denys ’11 and Anisa K. McCree ’10 quickly followed with an 8-4 win, giving MIT an early 2-0 lead.
Emily J. Onufer ’10 and Katherine M. Smyth ’10 finished their exhibition match with an 8-3 win, leaving Karina N. Pikhart ’09 and Melissa A. Diskin ’11 front and center. The hard fought match went back and forth until MIT’s duo barely lost in a tie breaker, losing the set 9-8 (6). The loss left MIT with a 2-1 lead heading into the singles round.
The singles matches were competitive, though MIT continued to show its dominance over Colby. Hansen won her match at one singles with a 6-1, 6-0 win, followed by Hoover winning 6-2, 6-2 to give MIT a 4-1 lead. Diskin had a tougher battle in her match, but fought out a 6-3, 6-3 win.
Denys pulled out a comeback win after losing the first set, 3-6, 6-2, 6-1. The Engineers’ second loss of the day came when Yi Wang ’09 lost a tough match 6-4, 6-2. That left McCree to close out the singles action. After losing the first set, McCree won the second set and the third set tiebreak, finishing the match 6-7 (4), 7-5, 10-4.
In the exhibition matches, Jennifer A. Rees ’11 won 8-3 and Sonya Makhni ’11 battled the entire way but lost 8-4. Makhni did however provide one of the best fist pumps of the day, rivaling that of team captain Hoover, who is well known for them among the team.