Women’s tennis finishes regular season unbeaten
Team remains unbeaten for 4th straight season
MIT women’s tennis team completed its New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) regular season undefeated after blanking Smith College 9-0. It is the fourth-consecutive season and the seventh overall that MIT has finished its NEWMAC slate undefeated.
MIT (8-0, 8-0 NEWMAC) quickly went up 2-0 in the contest after capturing both the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles matches by identical 8-1 scores. Smith (3-6, 2-6 NEWMAC) saw its No. 3 team of freshmen Janan Fugel and Morgan Barney stay with MIT’s duo of Ava Soleimany ’16 and Iris Zhuang ’16 early before the Engineers pulled away for an 8-4 victory.
Moving to singles play, the top two flights clinched the match for MIT. Elysa Kohrs ’17 picked up the first singles point for the Engineers, taking her No. 1 match by a 6-0, 6-0 score over freshman Noa Dubin. At No. 2 Dora Tzeng ’18, then picked up the match-clinching fifth point of the day, taking a 6-1, 6-0 decision.
Playing at Nos. 4 and 6, Zhuang ’16 and Soleimany ’16 also took 6-1, 6-0 victories to move MIT to a 7-0 advantage. At No. 5, Barney stayed close to Rena Liu ’18 early on only to see Liu ’18 pull away to take a 6-4, 6-1 win. Sonya Das’ 18 finished things up at No. 3, taking a 6-3, 6-2 win over sophomore Samantha Peikes.
With conference regular season play completed, both MIT and Smith will next compete at the annual New England Women’s Intercollegiate Tournament that will be held next weekend, starting on Friday, Oct. 16.