The California Lutheran University women’s tennis team took on Vassar College in nine matches consisting of three doubles matches and six singles matches. The Regals pulled out a 6-3 win after four hours of play.

This was the Regals first match in two weeks after two of their matches got cancelled because of poor weather conditions.

“It’s always a little bit tough when your matches get rained out because you come with the mindset that your ‘egoing to play a match and then it starts raining,” sophomore Gianna Cupo said. “We had to wait four hours for one of our matches to get cancelled. I think it’s a little tough mentally, more than physically to get back onto the court.”

The day started out with three doubles matches. On court No. 1 junior Emily Werman and Cupo dominated their match with an 8-1 victory to start the Regals with a point. Court No. 2 had junior Rebecca Gold and freshman Sarah Seeman going 16 sets to come up short 9-7 Brewers. The third and final doubles match was played on court No. 3 by junior Shelby Kubota and freshman Christie Kurdys. They fell to the Brewers 8-5 in 14 sets.

“I think we played really strong. They were a very good ranked team. We brought our A-game, stayed focused and kept fighting,” Gold said. “Doubles was great, our ones did a good job at staying down and just controlling the ball and the points. I was on court No. 2 with my partner and I think we stayed ahead. I was really proud with how everyone fought.”

Then began the singles play across all six courts. Cupo started off in the first court with a 6-4, 6-1 straight sets victory. Seeman came out with a win in straight sets as well two wins as well with scores of 6-2 and 7-5. Werman came out strong the first set with a 6-0 win. She was down the second set 5-1 and came back to put the match away with a 7-5 win. Kurdys was in the fourth court and put up a fight until the end and came out in three sets with scores of 4-6, 6-2 and 6-1.

Gold was the first of the Regals to win her singles match with two wins right away with scores of 6-3 and 6-0. Kubota was the only Regal unable to get a win in singles and went down two games to none with scoring sets of 6-4 and 6-4.

“I think for me our last match we actually played was a very draining match both mentally and physically,” Werman said. “I think I learned from that and I hope our whole team did too. Tennis isn’t just a physical game, it’s a mind game, and I used that experience to help me in my singles match today. Our whole team was mentally focused and positive and I liked it.”

With the Werman/Cupo win in doubles and five out of the six Regals winnings in singles, the Regals won the overall match with a score of 6-3 against Vassar, who is nationally ranked at No. 32.

“I think they fought really hard. Every single shot, every single game was a fight,” Head Coach Vanessa McPadden said. “I think we could have easily lost, it was neck and neck, but we came out 6-3 and it was good.”

The Regals will continue non-conference play with matchup against Wheaton at the Poulson Tennis Center on March 17 at 4 p.m.

Courtney Sooy
Senior Writer
Published March 16th, 2016