The Lady Warhawk Tennis team had another strong outing this past weekend.  On Friday they upped their record to 4-0 by taking their conference opener 9-0 against UW-Stout.  Then on Saturday the team was able to play all 13 players in the 5 flights of the Warhawk Invite and all players looked very solid in their tournament play.

 

Against Stout we knew we’d be challenged at the top of the lineup as Stout has two very good players at #1 singles and #2 singles and #1 doubles.  Stout is led by junior Allie Hinman and is now joined by freshman Abby Werwie.  The Hawks showed they were up for the challenge however winning 8-3, 8-1, and 8-2 in doubles, and then dominated in singles not losing more than three games in any match.  The highlights of the match were Schaefer’s great play at #1 taking out Hinman 6-0, 6-2, Kinsman (Soph)/Kasten (Fresh) getting their season debut in the varsity doubles lineup and Freshman Lauren Aguilar getting her varsity singles debut.  Martin, Foster, and Kasten also combined forces to take all three exhibition matches.  For all individual scores for the Stout match go to: http://www.uwwsports.com/news/2009/9/11/WTEN_0911090919.aspx?path=wten

 

The excitement of the weekend was the Warhawk Invite.  Because we only had five teams this year and teams were allowed to enter multiple players in each draw it was only an individual tournament with no team scores.  There were three singles flights A, B, and C.  There were two doubles flights A and B.  Each flight had 8 players and the brackets were played out entirely.  Below is how each of our player did in each draw, but you can go to http://www.uwwsports.com/news/2009/9/12/WTEN_0912090756.aspx?path=wten to see the complete brackets and some photos.  Just a quick note, you will see some matches say “uncontested” that happened a few times when a final match had players from the same team playing each other and the coach decided not to play it.  We played ours out in those situations except Martin vs Aguilar which will be played this week due to Aguilar’s injury.  It was great to have an all Whitewater final in the A doubles and the C singles.  Congrats to all players for a wonderful job!  Another note was that Amy Siemon one of our top players was out with the flu.  She would have been another entry in the A singles draw.

 

Annie Smith, beat Maruyama (LaX) and then the #1 seed (Beloit), before losing in the final to Hinman (Stout) in an epic battle of comebacks 7-6 in the third set.

Ingrid Stensvaag beat McDonald (LaX) and then lost to the eventual champ (Stout), before beating the #1 seed in 3^rd place match.  In that match she was down 5-1, 15-40 before coming back while only losing one more game on the day.

A doubles: Our two entrants Schaefer/Daciolas and Kappel/Rutkowski met in the final after each playing great matches.  Schaefer/Daciolas beat Schoenwaelder/Bohrman(LaX) in the semis while Kappel/Rutkowski knocked off the #1 pair from each Oshkosh (Bostwick/Leffler) and La Crosse (Stadum/Kuether) in route to the finals.  In the finals Rutkowski/Kappel continued their great play taking the first set in a tiebreak and Daciolas/Schaefer then took over to take the match in the end.

B Singles: Lauren Aguilar and Abby Martin each won in the first round and played terrific in the semis in hopes of meeting in the final, but they both lost in tiebreaks to great opponents.  Aguilar’ lost to Werwie (Stout’s #2 player), and Martin lost to Weiner of La Crosse.  They both battled back after losing first sets to show great composure.

B Doubles: Kasten/Kinsman won easily in the first round and then played very tough tennis but lost to a very good La Crosse team (Fallon/Vivian).  This put them in the third place match.  They came back to win the second set after losing the first, but lost in tiebreak as well to Oshkosh.  They earned some great experience as they are both young players on this team.

C Singles: This was another highlight for us as two of our freshmen reached the final!  Both Kelly Foster and Crystal Zhao had to win their first rounds in super tie breaks, but showed they were tough in the tight spots.  Then in the semis Zhao was clicking on all cylinders winning easily.  Foster showed her grit battling back again after losing the first.  She cruised in the tiebreak to a 10-0 win setting up the showdown between the Lady Warhawks.  They both actually played some of their best tennis since they’ve been here in the first set.  Zhao took the first set and then follow it up with another closely contested set to take the championship.

 

The week we have a varsity reserve match against Rock Valley on Tuesday at 3:30 at home then on Saturday at 9am we have another conference match against UW-River Falls at home.  As soon as the match is over, we will be jumping in the vans, and heading to Mequon to take on Concordia at 2:30pm.

 

GO WARHAWKS!!