Women's Tennis Suffers Loss in Season Opener

Despite falling behind 0-3 in doubles, the Goucher Women's Tennis team showed a lot of fight throughout. Junior Ceri McCaffrey (Ardsley, NY/Ardsley) and first-year Gigi Bellisario (Elmer, NJ/Woostown) stayed neck and neck with Sarah Ahren and Tiffany Trivers at number one doubles but the Raptors edged them out late to beat the Gophers 8-6. The pair of first year players, Shelby Meek (Halethorpe, MD/Catonsville) and Eliza Abady (Dobbs Ferry, NY/The Masters School) got down early on at the number two spot, but they continued to improve, falling just short as Rutgers Camden won 8-4. Seniors Sara Healy (Waterford, VA/Woodgrove) and Alex DiGiovanni (York, PA/Dover) lost 8-2 at three doubles.   

The Gophers showed resilience in singles as they came away with three wins at the number one, three, and six positions. 

Meek faced tough competition at number two singles as she fell 6-3, 6-2 to Sam Hoban. DiGiovanni was the first to get in the win column for the Gophers as she dispatched Morgan Dempsey, 6-4, 6-3 at number six. The next match to finish was four singles as Abady lost a tight first set to Laurel Distefano with the final score of 6-4, 6-1. The Gophers next win came from Bellisario who took three sets to win her first ever collegiate match. Bellisario played very steady in the first getting a quick 6-2 win, however, Trivers was not to be beaten easily as she came back to win the second 6-2. The ensuing tiebreak was close in the beginning until Bellisario pulled away to win 10-5 in the third. 

Sara Healy was the next to come off the court as she fell 6-3, 6-4 to Leanne Hay, but the match was tight the entire time with both players working hard to outlast each other. Goucher's third point came from McCaffrey who had a solid all-around performance against Ahren winning in straight sets with scores of 6-4, 6-3. 

"We are a young team this year with a ton of potential moving forward" said head coach Steve Baum.  "When you have a young squad like ours there is a learning curve, but everyone ended the day better than they started.  We will continue to learn from every opportunity that we can and be patient knowing that we will improve week to week"  

The Gophers will play their next match on Saturday, September 18th, when they take on Stockton University at 12:00pm