The Dartmouth women's tennis team had a disappointing weekend at the ITA Team Championships in Princeton, NJ, losing all three of its matches and finishing the eight-team tournament in last place.
The Big Green were defeated by Seton Hall 6-3, Old Dominion 5-1, and James Madison 5-4.
Despite the losses, Dartmouth was able to take many positives away from the matches.
First off, it was an honor simply for the Big Green to compete in the ITA. Invitations only go to the top 16 teams in the region. This means that the panel which decided on the tournament's draw was impressed with both last year's Dartmouth team and this year's recruit class.
"It's a great tournament, to be invited, to play, and we were competitive in all our matches," Coach Chris Kerr said.
Another positive was the squad's attitude. "We gave it our best as a team," Katie Kirkmire '98 said.
This was impressive because of how young the Dartmouth team is. Out of the Big Green's seven starters, only two, Captain Trudy Muller '96 and Kallie Buehler '97, are not freshmen or sophomores.
These matches also provided important experience for Dartmouth when league play begins in the spring.
The young team was able to play some tough opponents. Both Seton Hall and Old Dominion were seeded in the tournament.
But overall, the weekend was still a disappointment.
In the Big Green's first match, they fell 6-3 to Seton Hall. Dartmouth victories were provided by third singles Kirkmire [6-1, 7-6], sixth singles Courtney Dill '99 [6-4, 3-6, 6-4], and the third doubles team of Kirkmire and Carrie Lucas '99 [9-7].
The loss dropped Dartmouth into the consolation bracket where they faced Old Dominion. This match produced only one victory for the Big Green. Fifth singles Sarah Anderson '99 won her match 6-4, 6-4.
Dartmouth fared slightly better when the Big Green faced James Madison for seventh place. This time the Big Green went down by a 5-4 count.
Winners for Dartmouth were first singles Lee [2-6, 7-5, 7-5], fifth singles Anderson [7-5, 6-4], the second doubles team of Muller and Anderson [8-6], and Kirkmire and Lucas at third doubles [8-5].
The James Madison loss was especially tough for the Big Green because out of four three-set singles matches, Dartmouth was victorious in only one. One more win would have given the Big Green the contest.
The weekend results leave the Big Green with some work to do. The team was disappointed in repeatedly getting off to slow starts and losing many of their close matches.
"It seems like it takes us awhile before we get going in the matches," Kirkmire said.
But the weekend was not as bad as it seemed. "With our young team I was realistically hoping for fifth, sixth, or seventh," Kerr said.
The three losses drop the Big Green to 1-4 on the fall season.
