The men’s and women’s teams kicked back into action this past weekend, hosting Wagner College for a pair of dual matches. Both teams lost by a final score of 5-2.
After coming back from an ankle injury that she sustained last week, junior Hanna Ganchi snagged the win in both her doubles and singles matches. She teamed up with freshman Sophia Pacheco.
“I usually play with Alyssa Perdomo, but our coach was like, ‘Let’s mix up the matches,’ because it’s the fall and see maybe if there are potentially better match pairings,” Ganchi said of her doubles match.
The Leopards dropped the other two doubles matches to give Wagner the doubles point.
In the singles matches, Ganchi and senior Ally Waldman managed the only wins for the Maroon and White. Ganchi won her match 6-4 6-4. Waldman took the first set 6-3, but battled mightily in a closer second that she pulled off 7-5.
Ganchi attributed her individual success to staying “more positive.”
“I’ve been seeing better results in the matches that I win,” she said.
Even though the Leopards fell in the rest of their singles matches, they did not go down without a fight. Freshman Sophia Bald won her first set 7-5, but fell 5-7 7-5 7-6 (6) in a taxing match tiebreaker.
The men entered Sunday riding off the high from their win against Kutztown. However, the team knew that Wagner would be a much more formidable opponent, explained senior Sam Gelber.
“The last time we played Wagner was two years ago, my sophomore year, we beat them pretty good,” Gelber said. “They’re a much-improved team, and we knew that going into it. I knew we would all have to play better, raise our level, including myself.”
All three of the Leopards’ doubles teams did not come through with a victory. Gelber and fellow senior Jake Magnusson put up the closest fight, falling 6-3.
“Our style of doubles is aggressive, taking the match to them,” Gelber said. “We let them bring it to us, and just reacted really badly.”
On the singles side, the freshmen shone the brightest, as classmates John Dickens and Niko Martirossian took home a pair of victories. After a hard-fought victory in Dickens’ first set 7-6 (6), his opponent retired in the middle of the second set. Martirossian controlled the pace of play in a straight-set victory, winning 6-3 6-4.
Although both teams left Sunday afternoon with a loss, there were multiple beneficial takeaways from both of the matches, according to Gelber and Ganchi.
“Everyone genuinely looked like they wanted to win,” Ganchi said. “I was really happy to see that, because it’s really easy for one person to have a bad day and really lose themselves and kind of affect the entire team.”
“We finished strong, but starting stronger is the main takeaway,” Gelber said.
Both teams will return to play for their final competition of the fall at Bloomsburg University in the Bloomsburg Invitational, from Oct. 17-18.