BY LIZ HUANG '17
Last weekend, the Mount Holyoke tennis team added a win over the Emerson Lions on Sept. 10 and suffered their first defeat of the season to the Wellesley Blue on Sept. 11.
The Lyons started the weekend off strong, with an impressive 9-0 defeat over Emerson. The doubles pair of Ayame Yazawa ’19 and Ching-Ching Huang ’20 posted a dominant 8-0 win over Emerson first years Alisah Parikh and Sabrina Jacobs. Captain Alexis Colas ’17 and Catherine Peabody ’20 followed up with an 8-1 win over Emerson sophomore Jamie CoConis and first year Rachel Scalera. Clara Wang ’19 and captain Amy Chen ’17 shut out the final doubles flight against Emerson first years Emily Hagopian and Alex Weingarten. The Lyons lead 3-0 following the doubles matches.
In singles action, wins from Chen, Peabody, Huang, Madison Rosen ’19, Ishita Tibrewal ’18 and Yazawa clinched Mount Holyoke’s win in a decisive fashion.
Following their win over Emerson, Mount Holyoke posted its first defeat of the season to Wellesley, 2-7.
Wellesley senior Carina Chen and sophomore Justine Huang defeated Yazawa and Ching-Ching Huang 8-6. The onslaught by Wellesley would continue with Wellesley senior Andjela Stojkovic and first year Sarah Yan emerging victorious over Colas and Peabody, 8-5. Despite keeping it close in the third flight, Amy Chen and Wang were unable to defeat the doubles pair of Wellesley first year Selina Peng and sophomore Rosanne Hu.
Even with wins in singles by Amy Chen and Yazawa, the Lyons were unable to make a comeback and ended their win-streak with this loss.
For coach Aldo Santiago, the loss against Wellesley did not taint his view of the winning start Mount Holyoke has this season. “The team is up to a great competitive start. We are working diligently on developing the skills needed to provide us with the best chance to succeed no matter who is our opponent,” said Santiago.
With last weekend’s results, Mount Holyoke moves to 4-1 on the season and 2-1 in conference play. They face MIT on Sept. 17 in Cambridge.