by Nicole Oh | Staff Writer
This weekend the Whitworth women’s tennis team faced Lewis & Clark College on Saturday and George Fox University on Sunday. Both teams are members of the Northwest Conference. On Saturday the Pirates fell 2-7 to Lewis & Clark, but bounced back Sunday to defeat the George Fox Bruins 7-2. This win puts the Pirates 4-5 overall in the season and 3-2 in the Northwest Conference.
During Saturday’s double matches, Lewis & Clark won two of the three matches. Freshman Avery Liening and Junior Marissa Kirk teamed up to earn Whitworth points with a 8-4 win. In the singles matches, senior Jennifer Adams was the only Pirate to pick up points, defeating her opponent 6-3 and 6-0.
Turning things around on Sunday, Whitworth won two of the three double matches. Sophomore Erica Lee and Junior Emma Jo Wiley won their match 8-2. Adams and Junior Katie Lacayo also won their match, with a score of 8-5. Further increasing the Pirates lead, Adams scored a 6-2, 6-2 victory in singles. To cap off the day Liening, Wiley, Lacayo and Kirk each won their singles matches.
“The first day was pretty tough, we were playing an opponent where it has historically always been a close fight, however Sunday we all played significantly better”sophomore Emily Sanquist said.
“We are looking to improve mentally and not psych ourselves out,”Sandquist said. “On Saturday when we were playing we weren’t completely focused on playing in the moment, and were worried more about the outcome.”The mindset going into Sunday’s game was “to stay loose and aggressive,”she said.
“The ultimate goal is for us to be top four, because those are the teams that get to play at conference” freshman Kiana Pielli said.
The Pirates will be working towards accomplishing this goal when they play again next weekend March 17 and 18. On the 17 at Pacific Lutheran, who is a member of the Northwest Conference, and the following day will be at Bellevue Community College for an exhibition match.