Logo
Logo
Logo
Twitter   Facebook
Falcons Get Back To Winning With 8-1 Decision Over Lycoming
Posted: 9/29/2009
Box Score | More Women's Tennis news
Senior Christie McGinley was among those who came out strong Tuesday, winning in both singles and doubles.

By Jansen Hein, GoMessiah.com reporter
Grantham, PA — When Messiah head coach Sheila Bush spoke of her team learning from a pair of 9-0, non-conference losses a few days ago, she was obviously being prophetic.

Messiah responded from a tough stretch of matches with an 8-1 win over Lycoming College Tuesday afternoon at Criste Courts, evening its Commonwealth Conference record at 1-1 while pulling a match within the .500 mark overall.

“We needed to play good tennis today, and we did,” Bush said following the win. “I was pleased with how we responded after dropping our last two.”

Doubles play finally took off for the Falcons, but it took a few games for the girls to get used to the windy elements and wake their feet up. After all three doubles teams lost their opening game, Messiah’s first and third doubles each went on 8-1 runs to each finish 8-2. Consistency and control of the net proved key to the victories in both, but senior Annie Gotchel and sophomore Sarah Thow struggled at second doubles and ended up losing by the same margin that their teammates had won just moments before. Unforced errors let to a disappointing 2-8 loss for the usually strong Messiah second doubles combo, as Lycoming (0-5, 0-2) had a sliver of hope for its first team win of the season.  

Once Messiah (3-4, 1-1) took the lead, however, they were not quick to give it up. With a sliding slice serve to the deuce side, junior Katie Marstaller started the singles portion of the match off on the right foot, defeating Lyco’s Erika Niemann 6-0, 6-1.

With that, the race was on for third through sixth singles.

The bottom four singles positions gave up a combined total of only four games to the Warriors, as junior Steph Knepper landed the lone shutout of the day in singles with a dominating 6-0, 6-0 performance over Lycoming’s Abby Petritsch. Gotchel was able to bounce back from her disappointing loss in doubles play to post an impressive 6-1, 6-1 victory at the number five singles flight, cruising past the Warriors Adriana Rivera.  

“It was a good turnaround for me today from doubles to singles,” noted Gotchel. “We are in a bit of a down period in doubles but are looking to turn things around in the upcoming week. Its’ nice to be back on the winning trail again.”

Marstaller and Thow — at third and four singles, respectively — each surrendered only one game in their second sets on their way to decisive 6-0, 6-1 victories. Thow, suffering from some shoulder problems as of late, recovered well from her doubles loss to confidently control her singles opponent.

“Sarah played like a champ in singles considering her shoulder problems this week,” Bush said. “It was a good win for her and I never have to worry about Katie in singles, she is always down to business.”

Senior Christie McGinley and junior Stacey Clark also shared final scores of 6-3, 6-2 as each went on to singles triumph: McGinley at the top singles flight and Clark at the number two slot. Clark was able to hold off the powerful serve and crosscourt forehands of Lyco’s Rebecca Reynolds for a well deserved win. McGinley — finally strong after her recent illness and with a fairly large group of supporting fans —handled her match well.  

“It was a slower paced match that I would have preferred,” she said following the win. “I like to keep the intensity high and this was a bit different for me but in the end the result was good nonetheless.”

Messiah will take just 48 hours to pause before its next match, as the team travels to Penn State University Harrisburg Thursday afternoon. Match time is set for 4 p.m.