Goucher College Women's Tennis Upended By Moravian In Landmark Conference Semifinals
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Top seed Moravian College defeated No. 4 Goucher College 5-1 in the Landmark Conference Women's Tennis Tournament Semifinals on Wednesday. The match was moved to the Lewis Indoor Tennis Courts on the Lehigh University campus due to the impending weather coming into the Lehigh Valley.
Anais Gill (Cambridge, England/Hills Road Sixth Form College) and Mandile Mpofu (Harare, Zimbabwe/Arundel School) tied the match at 1 with an 8-6 win at No. 1 doubles. It was the second time this season the duo took down the Greyhounds No. 1 tandem team after an 8-1 win in the regular season meeting on April 7.
"Even though today's match didn't go our way, this season was still a great success for the program," said first-year head coach Steve Baum. "We accomplished so much this year and we showed the conference how much of a threat we will be in the future. I am proud of how hard we worked this year. We continuously got better every day and represented Goucher well."
Gill was not only fighting her opponent, but also time in her No. 1 singles match and unfortunately time ran out of Gill in her match and her freshman campaign. Gill won the first set 6-4 and was up 5-4 in the second set and had either deuce or advantage, but the Greyhounds had clinched the match before she could finish the game.
Tes DeJaeger (Norwalk, Conn./Brien McMahon) and Haddie Hill (San Antonio, Texas/The Episcopal School of Texas) had a chance to give the Gophers the edge going into singles play and sent the No. 2 doubles match to a tiebreaker before falling 8-7 (7-1).
Moravian took at 1-0 lead in the team competition with an 8-3 win against Ali Gorson-Morrow (Broomall, Pa./Barrack Hebrew Academy) and Ali Tomasevich (Harleysville, Pa./Souderton) at No. 3 doubles.
Hill lost at No. 3 singles 6-0, 6-2, DeJaeger fell at No. 4 singles 6-4, 6-3 and Mpofu dropped a 6-0, 6-3 decision at No. 2 singles to give Moravian the win and move on to the Landmark Conference Championship Game.
Katie Marzerka (Wolfeboro, N.H./Kingswood Regional) at No. 5 singles started but did not record a service game and Kyoko Kinoshita (Tokyo, Japan/Tilton School [N.H.]) at No. 6 singles did not even touch the court.
The match marked the final collegiate contest for Tomasevich and Meera Balasubramanian (Bel Air, Md./Oldsfield School). Tomasevich went 10-4 on the year in doubles and 7-2 in singles play while registering 20 career wins in doubles and 19 in singles for a combined 39 career wins. Balasubramanian won six singles matches and 14 doubles matches in her career.
Goucher made its fifth appearance in the Landmark Conference postseason. The Gophers clinched is first non-losing regular season record (10-10) and winning Landmark Conference (4-3) mark since 2013.
Doubles
1. (GC) Anais Gill/Mandile Mpofu defeats (MC) Emma Angle/Eiman Nazif, 8-6
2. (MC) Mary Angle/Lauren Steinert defeats (GC) Tes DeJaeger/Haddie Hill, 8-7
3. (MC) Brooke Adams/Kristen Cassidy defeats (GC) Ali Gorson-Morrow/Ali Tomasevich, 8-3
Singles
1. (GC) Anais Gill leads (MC) Emma Angle, 6-4, 5-4, unfinished
2. (MC) Eiman Nazif defeats (GC) Mandile Mpofu, 6-0, 6-3
3. (GC) Mary Angle defeats (GC) Haddie Hill, 6-0, 6-2
4. (MC) Lauren Steinert defeats (GC) Tes DeJaeger, 6-4, 6-3
5. (GC) Katie Marzerka vs. (MC) Brooke Adams, 0-0, unfinished
6. (GC) Kyoko Kinoshita vs. (MC) Kyoko Kinoshita, no result