Women’s tennis gears up for postseason
As the fall season cools down, sports across the seasons are starting to heat up, especially women’s tennis. Like many teams, women’s tennis starts their postseason in the upcoming weeks with a date against third-seeded Endicott at home on Oct. 22.
With the regular season wrapping up, the Hawks were able to secure multiple awards and recognition from the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC). Coach Barry Gorman took home his first sole CCC Coach of the Year award for his women’s teams, after earning CCC Women’s Co-Coach of the Year for the 2016-17 campaign.
In addition, freshman Alessia Cahoon took home the CCC Rookie of the Year along with appearing on All-CCC First Team for singles and doubles. Junior Taryn Roche appeared on the All-CCC First Team for singles, while freshman Emma Place earned a selection to All-CCC Second Team for singles respectively. Junior captain Heidi Martin was selected to All-CCC Second Team for doubles and first team for singles, while senior Jessica Magliato walked away with All-CCC Third team selections for singles and doubles as well.
The Hawks beat the Endicott Gulls for the first time in 10 years in their only regular season matchup this year on Sept. 24, by a score of 5-4. When asked about the semi-final match against Endicott on Oct. 23, Gorman spoke about what he thought would play out.
“It’s going to be another close match,” Gorman said. “We’re going to need a better start in doubles.”
In the regular season match, the Hawks won one of the three doubles matches but performed much better in singles, winning four of the six bouts.
Gorman also pointed to the fact that the playoff match would be at home. Like most sports, home court advantage does play a heavy role in the match. Besides not having to travel, the home fans really help the players.
“We had a bunch of fans at our last match,” Gorman said, referring to their only loss of the season against the conference tournament first seed, Nichols, back on Oct. 4.
“Nichols was more consistent than us,” Gorman said, emphasizing the focus that the team needed to be more consistent with placing and executing shots as they headed into the playoffs.
Nichols faced Gordon in a home match on Oct. 22 as well. The Bison took care of Gordon easily by a score of 8-1 in their regular season match, dropping their only match in singles play.
