By Tyler Morello
Staff Writer
The College’s tennis teams continued their scorching starts to the season by winning each of their matchups on March 9. The men’s team defeated No. 34 Hobart 6-3, while the women’s team defeated William Smith College 9-0.
The men’s team traveled to Geneva, New York, and came into their matchup with Hobart as the No. 36 ranked team. The Lions were able to remain undefeated, improving to 6-0 and avenging their loss to Hobart last season.
They won all three of their doubles matches relatively convincingly. Sixth-year Matthew Michibata and sophomore Harrison Maitland-Carter dominated their match 8-2 to get the Lions going. Sophomores Brett Schuster and Alberto Thomas then won their match 8-5, while freshman Aayush Kishore and junior Dorian Makarski completed the sweep of doubles matches winning 8-4.
The Lions were able to secure the win by splitting the singles matches 3-3, with wins from Michibata, Thomas and Maitland-Carter. Michibata won in three sets, coming back after losing the first set 6-3. Thomas won in two sets while Maitland-Carter won in three sets after a back-and-forth match that ended with him winning 10-7 in the final set tiebreaker.
These performances led the Lions to a victory and their second win against a nationally ranked team this season. As a team, they have played a total of 52 matches so far this year, winning 43 of those matches and only losing 9 of them. The College’s men’s team is home for their upcoming matchups against New York University on March 23 and Rutgers-Camden on March 24.
The College’s women’s team’s win over William Smith College was quite a commanding one. The Lions did not lose a single match — the third time they have done so this season.
For doubles, senior Chase Eisenberg and freshman Zoey Albert teamed up for an 8-6 victory while junior Aira Abalos and freshman Marcella Warner were able to coast to an 8-2 win. Freshmen Gabriella Robinson and Prisha Priyadarshini found themselves in an intense match with the contest going to a tiebreaker at 7-7, but they were able to pull out a victory, winning the break 7-3.
The Lions won all six of their singles matches in two sets, and won a total of 73 games to the Herons’ 24 games in those singles matches. Abalos won 6-2 and 7-6 with a 7-5 tiebreaker victory. Eisenberg won 6-1 and 6-4, and is now at 98 career wins, closing in on 100.
The College’s women’s team is gearing up for a busy weekend with matches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They take on New Paltz on Friday, No. 24 NYU on Saturday and Rutgers-Camden on Sunday. The Lions look to remain undefeated and continue their early dominance throughout the rest of the season.
