The 18th-ranked Bowdoin women's tennis team dropped a match to 19th-ranked Tufts on Sunday, leaving the Bears with a 4-3 NESCAC record this season. The Bears are 8-7 overall.
Bowdoin fell 9-1 to Tufts, with Stephanie Langer '11 claiming the team's only victory at No. 6 singles (6-2, 6-4). Rachel Waldman '09 and Liz Pedowitz '10 also had tight matches at No. 4 and No. 5 singles, respectively. Waldman lost in three sets, while Pedowitz fell in a tie-breaker.
The team lost all of their doubles matches, and Waldman commented on the skill of the Tufts doubles lineup.
"Tufts is always a strong team and they came out prepared for the match," Waldman said. "With three strong doubles teams, the matches were all close, and could have gone either way."
Pedowitz also noted the competitive nature of the matches.
"Despite what the overall match score says, we realize how close it really was," she said. "There were a lot of individual close matches including some losses in tiebreakers and 3-setters."
The match against Tufts marked the Bears' last home match of the season, and the last match on the Bowdoin courts for seniors Waldman, Sarah D'Elia, and Charlotte Hitch.
"Our last home match was bittersweet," Waldman said. "But the season is not over, and we still have a lot of work to do."
The team will begin postseason play at the NESCAC tournament this weekend, hosted by Williams. The Bears will face Tufts again in the first round of NESCACS.
"This is a great opportunity for us...to play Tufts again and beat them this time around," Waldman said.
"We now know the game-style of each player and what we need to do to win," Pedowitz added. "We want revenge and there is no doubt in my mind that we have it in us to beat Tufts only a week after they beat us."
Waldman added that the team will bring their A-game to the court this weekend.
"Having just played Tufts, we know what to do, and we're prepared to play our very best tennis," she said.
The men's side did not play last weekend, but its season is far from over. After finishing No. 4 in the NESCAC, the Polar Bears will face fifth-seed Trinity at 9 a.m. today at Williams College.
The Bears were a fourth seed last year when they won the NESCAC championship.
If the Bears beat Trinity, they would face top-seed Middlebury at 9 a.m. on Saturday in the semifinals.
"We've lost to the top-three teams in the conference," said Stephen Sullivan '11, "but we barely lost."
-Seth Walder contributed to this report.