Winding Down the Regular Season

“Surprise them,” said head coach Jane Parker in the locker room before our match against No. 13 ranked Middlebury. “We have nothing to lose and they have everything to lose. Let’s go out there and surprise them and prove to them how strong we are.”

Although we ended up losing, we certainly did surprise them. While Middlebury expected an easy win, we pushed them to a much closer, 6-3 victory. Emilie Kraft won at the number one spot and Meg Taylor and Alexa Lichtenstein picked up yet another set of wins for Vassar at number six and seven. Libby Pei lost to her opponent in a difficult five game match and many of the other spots had close games that could have gone either way. We left the match with our heads high, confident that we could contend with higher ranked teams, and ready for the Seven Sisters Tournament the following weekend.

We entered Seven Sisters seeded second for another year as Mt. Holyoke has won the last three years and proven to be a difficult team to beat. Our first match, Saturday morning, was against an improved Smith team. We pulled out a fairly easy win, beating Smith 9-0 and advancing to the finals against Mt. Holyoke as we had anticipated.

Mt. Holyoke entered the tournament with an impressive No. 12 ranking and we knew we would have one of our toughest matches of the season ahead of us. We went into the match with the same mentality as Middlebury, wanting to prove, despite our lower ranking, that we could still compete. Kenyon Hall was packed with friends, family, and professors, but Mt. Holyoke once again was too strong for us to beat. A 7-2 loss was still an improvement from last year’s 9-0 defeat. Additionally, although we only won two matches, the scores were much closer as Emilie’s loss consisted of two 12-10 games against Mt. Holyoke’s number one who is ranked No. 54 individually in the CSA. Sophomore Meg Taylor and freshman Alexa Lichtenstein remain forces to be reckoned with and received Liberty League Performer of the week and Rookie of the week respectively, for the second straight week.

As the regular season is drawing to a close with our final home matches being played this Saturday, February 13, at Kenyon Hall, we are hoping to add two more wins to our record before heading to nationals. Now placed in the C division, we have set our goal to win the Walker Cup at Yale, bring the trophy home to Vassar and finish at No. 17, a two spot improvement from last year. Compared with the last three seasons I’ve been here, the growth on the team this year has been exceptional. We are eager and excited to win our remaining matches and continue to improve as a team.