Sports Shorts
Women’s Tennis Rallies Past Brandeis, 5-4
The nationally-ranked No. 29 MIT women’s tennis team battled back from a 4-3 deficit to record a 5-4 victory over host Brandeis University on Tuesday. With the win, the Engineers improved to 12-6 on the season.
The Judges quickly established a 2-0 lead during doubles play. Mackenzie Gallegos and Rachel Rosman defeated Leslie A. Hansen ’10 and Anastasia Vishnevetsky ’12, 8-5, in the top spot while Ariana Sanai and Emily Weisberger topped Melissa A. Diskin ‘11 and Anisa K. McCree ’10, 8-3 in the No. 3 position. Karina N. Pikhart ’09 and Yi Wang ’09 put MIT on the board with an 8-4 decision.
Hansen led off singles action with a 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory as Vishnevetsky put the Engineers ahead by outlasting Gabrielle Helfgott, 5-7, 6-4, 7-5. Sanai rallied to defeat Wang, 3-6, 6-0, 7-5, to even the match at three points. In the No. 4 position, Gallegos topped Diskin, 6-3, 6-2, while Pikhart defeated Nina Levine, 6-2, 6-2.
In the decisive No. 5 singles pairing, Weisberger registered a 6-1 score in the first set, but McCree took the second, 6-4. The third set started with four straight breaks of serve before Weisberger held to go up 3-2. She earned a break for a 4-2 lead, but McCree broke back and then held, tying the set at 4-4. After Weisberger claimed a 5-4 edge, she went up 0-40 to earn three match points. McCree battled back, using the momentum to win the next two games and, after holding off two attempts to break back, took the set, 7-5, and clinched the match for MIT.
—Mindy Brauer, DAPER Staff
Men’s Tennis Defeats Babson, Captures 11th NEWMAC Title
In a battle of undefeated conference foes the MIT men’s tennis team emerged with an 8-1 victory over host Babson College on Tuesday, registering another unblemished campaign in the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) and picking up its 11th straight regular season title. The No. 1 seeded Engineers (13-2, 5-0 NEWMAC) will take on either No. 4 U.S. Coast Guard Academy or No. 5 Springfield College in the semifinals of the NEWMAC Championship Tournament hosted by Wheaton College on Saturday, April 25.
Peden P. Nichols ’09 and Elia S. Harmatz ’12 collaborated for an 8-1 win in the No. 3 doubles slot as Brian J. Wee ’12 and David E. Iba ’09 recorded an 8-2 decision. In the top spot, Ken Van Tilburg ’11 and Kevin Pang ’11 rallied from a 6-3 deficit to take an 8-6 victory over Alex Kamergorodsky and Brian Lafayette.
Harmatz yielded only one game in his 6-0, 6-1 decision against Austin Conti in the No. 4 singles position. Wee defeated Ken Lin, 6-1, 6-2 as Jonathan F. Farm ’09 topped Moises Numa, 6-2, 6-2. Nichols fought off Lafayette, 6-3, 6-4 in the No. 5 spot while Van Tilburg registered a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Justin Albert. In the No. 1 slot, Kamergorodsky outlasted Pang, 6-2, 3-6, 10-6, to post Babson’s lone point of the match.
—Mindy Brauer, DAPER Staff
MIT Triathlon Club Sends Eight to Collegiate Nationals
As the frenzy of CPW swept campus for four days, the MIT Triathlon club sent eight athletes to the USA Triathlon Collegiate Nationals last week, held in Lubbock, Texas. Facing competition from the best Triathlon clubs in the nation, the male team averaged 2:45 in the race, which consists of a mile swim, a 25 mile bike, and a 6.2 mile run. The men’s team was led by Rastislav Racz ’10 with a 2:32 performance. The three-athlete strong female team finished with an average of 3:04. Highlights for the team included scorching burns from the unforgiving Texas sun, Jana Marjanovic ’10 and Lindsey Holland ’10 swimming in 53 degree water without a wetsuit, and Zuzana Trnovcova ’09 posting the 11th best time in the bike-leg out of all female athletes (she finished 43rd out of 313 female overall).