Women’s tennis team is “advantage set” with high seed

On Friday, May 7, the St. Olaf men and women tennis teams will face opponents in the first round of MIAC playoffs. The men will take on fourth-seeded Bethel University, and the women will play the sixth seed, Saint Mary's. 

The men's team's last match was a home contest against Gustavus Adolphus, the MIAC first seed.  Gustavus is yet undefeated in the conference, and St. Olaf fell with a tough 8-1 loss on May 1. Andy Catania ‘13 was able to fight back and defeat Gustie opponent, Kyle Olson, in a singles match 6-3 in the first set and 7-5 in the second. Nick Hubbard-Peters ‘10 and John Foss ‘12 were able to pull their matches out three sets, but they eventually fell to their stronger rivals.

The men have the fifth seed in the upcoming playoffs and are looking to defeat Bethel University to whom they lost earlier in the season. 

The women are sitting pretty with their third-seed position in the MIAC bracket. The Ole women are ready to face the Saint Mary's Wildcats. St. Olaf defeated the sixth-seeded Wildcats with an impressive score of 8-1 back in March, but this is a different match with different stakes. The tennis team is feeling confident, but they won't discount St. Mary's.

Much of this confidence stems from recent victories against Macalester, Luther and St. Catherine. The Macalester and St. Catherine matches were both blow-outs with final scores of 8-1. In the Macalester contest, St. Olaf took all of the doubles matches, and in the latest St. Catherine face-off, Oles dominated the singles play when all six of the ladies competing achieved victory. None of the matches required a third-set tiebreaker.

The Luther team was tougher to overcome, as the 5-4 score reflects. Aimee Ny ‘10 was able to trounce Luther's Cassandra Chalhoub in the third set for a final score of 10-6.  Caitlin Harper ‘12, Christine Muller ‘12 and Julia Ellis ‘13 also came away with wins on April 27. The doubles team of Abigail Ho ‘11 and Muller beat its opponents in an exciting 8-3 match.

With a three-match winning streak, the women are positively pumped to play St. Mary's University.