Following a four game win streak heading into the weekend, the women’s tennis team kept its fire alive in matches against Tufts and Brandeis. After handily beating the Jumbos 7-2 on Saturday, the Polar Bears traveled to Waltham, Mass. and in a tightly contested match, took down Brandeis, 5-3. The two victories extend Bowdoin’s win streak to six matches and leaves them ranked No. 7 in the nation.
Going into the match against Tufts, the team prepared for a tough contest against a NESCAC rival.
“Tufts was supposed to be our closer match, but we ended up coming away with a pretty easy win,” said Tiffany Cheng ’17.
The Polar Bears received huge contributions in four singles matches from No. 1 Cheng (6-2, 6-3), No. 2 Kate Winingham ’14 (6-2, 7-5), No. 5 Emma Lewis ’14 (6-3, 6-3) and No. 6 Pilar Giffenig ’17 (6-3, 6-2) in order to clinch the win.
After dismantling Tufts, however, Cheng said, “Going into Brandeis we weren’t as mentally prepared.”
Despite this, two doubles wins by a team of Cheng and Giffenig at No. 3 (8-4) as well as the pairing of Samantha Stadler ’17 and Winningham (8-6) helped Bowdoin gain a 2-1 lead over Brandeis. However, after a furious comeback attempt by Brandeis, Lewis responded with a singles victory (4-6, 6-2, 6-2) and sealed the win for Bowdoin.
“We knew at least Sam [Stadler] or Emma [Lewis] had to win their match. So that was a crucial moment and Emma ended up coming through,” said Cheng.
After losing to Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps during their spring break trip to California, the Polar Bears regained their form and have not dropped a match since.
“We didn’t let those losses affect us because we knew those teams were really good and we knew we would just keep getting better,” said Stadler. “So we just kept working on our games and did well after that.”
Other players, like Lewis, said the team realized weaknesses in their matches after losses that needed to be fixed.
“We wanted to work on our match toughness in general, really embracing the big points and the pressure situations,” said Lewis.
The Polar Bears will face two top five nationally-ranked teams in Amherst and Emory in the coming weeks.
“We are definitely taking it one game at a time,” said Stadler, “But we are working up to those matches.
However, success in upcoming matches is also important in proving the team can achieve its ultimate goal.
“We definitely want to win the National Championships,” said Cheng. “It’s something we work for every year but this year we really do have a good shot.”
The team will take on Connecticut College (1-4) on April 6, Amherst (4-2) on April 11 and Emory (14-2) on April 13.