Zack Peñalva
Sports Editor
The women’s tennis team had a busy weekend last week, losing 6-3 to Cedarville University on Friday before coming back to demolish Alice Lloyd College 9-0 Saturday morning.
Asbury’s doubles teams played first Friday against the Cedarville Yellow Jackets. The Eagles first court team of sophomores Alex LoPrinzi and Laura Ross had a tough time against Cedarville’s Lauren Jackson and Courtney Heydt. Jackson and Heydt took a commanding lead early and we’re up four games to one before LoPrinzi and Ross began to claw their way back into the match. They won two games to Jackson and Heydt’s one before the Cedarville seniors took charge and won the match 8-4. The situation was similar for freshman Emily Ross and sophomore Juleah Morehouse on court three who ended up losing their contest 8-5.
The doubles group of Caitlin Conyers, freshman, and Sarah Beth Alford, sophomore, were the only Eagles to manage wins against Cedarville and the first came during the duos doubles match. Conyers and Alford were forced to grind out their match. After 16 games, eight wins for the Eagles and eight for the Yellow Jacket’s Lauren Jackson and Emily Paul, it came down to a tiebreak. Both sets of players still had singles matches to play after the doubles games were finished and at times it did look like both groups were trying to conserve energy as few shots were lobbed harmlessly back and forth in the hopes that the other team would be the first to crack and make a mistake. When Conyers and Alford did choose to strike, they did with efficiency, ending the match and securing the win.
It was during the singles matches that Cedarville showed their dominance. Four Yellow Jacket players took wins in their matchups.
Conyers prevented a complete shut out when she took the first court for her match against Lauren Jackson. The Asbury freshman won both sets convincingly at 6-4. Alford’s first set proved difficult, but after winning 7-6 she went on to defeat Lillian Schuler 6-2 in the second set. The performances of the two underclassmen this season have shown that both are very promising prospects for head coach Jarred Miller’s team not only this season, but going forward as well.
Despite the loss, at the end of the day Conyers said, “Cedarville had a really talented team…we didn’t pull out a team win, [but] I am really glad that we could pull out the three wins that we did.” The women’s tennis team has a break until Oct. 1 when they travel to play Berea College.