The men's and women's tennis teams took divergent paths this weekend. At the Eastern College Athletic Championship tournament at Princeton, the men's squad suffered a rare lack of form and lost, while the women's squad showed promise at the Brown Invitational.
The Brown Invitational was an individual tournament with various flights of competition. In the doubles flights, Dartmouth took third in the A-flight as Captain Cathy Birkeland '94 and Deb Healy '95 defeated a team from Minnesota while the Kallie Buehler '97 and Kiyoe Hashimoto '95 took third by default in the B-division.
The team of freshman Kelly Olsen and Trudy Muller '96 played for the C-flight championship, but fell in three hard-fought sets to a team from Washington. On their road to the finals, the pair beat Boston University in straight sets and Minnesota in three.
"They were two good wins," Coach Chris Kerr said of Olsen and Muller's victories, "especially the BU match. It was a good revenge match" after suffering a previous defeat.
"It was the definite highlight of the tournament," assistant coach Terry Cooper said.
Dartmouth's D-flight doubles team of freshmen Amy Hatch and Elizabeth Baker fell in the consolation round finals after taking Yale to three sets.
"Overall, we were quite pleased with our doubles play, given the high caliber of the teams attending," Kerr said. "There's a lot of growth in our freshmen since this was only the second tournament they could compete in."
The singles side of the tournament was not so friendly to the Big Green. Their main highlight was Hatch's capture of the consolation round championship in the D-flight singles. She ended up with a fifth place finish.
The squad's success in doubles comes as no surprise to Hatch.
"We've really been working hard on doubles for the past week, week and a half," she said, "and there was really an opportunity for everyone."
The players seemed "more match tough," Kerr said. "They simply played better and I was delighted to see our success spread out amongst our teams. We've worked hard to find the right combination of players. As for singles, we just need to play more. We were in all of the matches but getting match-tough takes time."
She was also thrilled at the contributions of the five newcomers to the team, as well as the vast improvement in the returning upperclassmen.
"All of the freshmen are improving and will continue to improve," she said. "Everyone has lot of potential" but noted that "any success we've had is because of our good core of returning players. We have a young team, and it's going to take a little time."
"We had a lot of tough three-set matches that we just didn't pull out," Birkeland said. "Hopefully, with a little more experience, we'll be able to pull them out in the future. I think that we're definitely going to be a strong team in the spring."
"Our major goal is strength. We need a lot more strength and a weight training program will give us that," Kerr said.
The men's squad felt short of their own expectations as they ran into tough opposition from schools such as Princeton and Columbia. Seeded third out of sixteen teams, the Big Green carried high hopes but simply fell short.
"We're certainly disappointed," Coach Chuck Kinyon said, "but we were right in the thick of things. We had every opportunity to go all the way, but we ran into some tough situations. We're right on the verge of beating any of those teams, and hopefully we've gained some valuable experience."
Their first opponent was Boston College, which Dartmouth dispatched, 6-1. They then took on Ivy League rival Princeton in the quarterfinals, with the Tigers pulling out a 5-2 victory. With three matches to go, Dartmouth had its back against the wall. Faced with the prospect of defeat or three straight victories, Dartmouth fell in three tiebreaks, losing to Princeton by a combined five points.
"We certainly have some highly-skilled doubles players but we just need to continue working on it," Kinyon said, with plans to focus on improving Dartmouth's doubles skills.
"Princeton was a lot better than we thought," Chase Arnold '95 said, "but I think we were a much better team than they were. We just couldn't make the tough points."
The losing streak continued as Columbia notched a surprise, 4-3 upset, leaving the Big Green dismayed and disappointed. The team was flat and the cold temperature did nothing to help them out.
"The team was pretty disappointed," Holden Spaht '96 said. "This was our highest seeding ever and we won the Ivies last year so we went out with the goal of winning it all."
Despite the loss, Spaht remains optimistic.
"We competed very well on an individual basis and we could've beaten Princeton and Columbia," he said. "Still, our prospects for the spring are good and we're still in the hunt. I still think we have the tools to win and I'm still encouraged."
"It was a good learning experience," Jim Rich '96 added. "I'm sure the team can on from here. I actually think it's good to lose every once in a while. It gets things in perspective and what really matters is the spring season [which is] the most important part of the year and it's what means the most to the guys on the team."
The women's team returns to action this Saturday as they travel to Princeton for the ITCA Eastern Team Final Eight. The men's team has the week off and competes at the Pennsylvania Invitational in two weeks.
