Galo Pesantes
Sports Editor
After dropping home matches to Redlands and UC Santa Cruz, the La Verne women’s tennis team traveled for its second road match against the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Athenas Feb. 24, losing 8-1.
“At one point, five of our players were up in their singles matches,” head coach Brian Harrison said.
“But Claremont pulled through and won it in the end,” Harrison said.
With the loss, the Leopards fall to 1-3 on the season and 1-2 in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play.
The Athenas improved to 4-0 in conference play, which currently ranks them alongside the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens atop the SCIAC in first place.
“Basically we came in seeing Claremont as a good team,” senior Jessica Baker said. “They are one of the toughest teams in the nation.”
Despite their record, ULV has played several nationally ranked teams like the Athenas and is part of one of the most competitive conferences in college tennis.
However, the Leopards are optimistic about the rest of the season with many seasoned players on their roster.
The team is looking to rely on several seniors and upperclassmen this season to lead them to more victories.
“We need to take all the experience we have and step it up a little bit,” Baker said. “We are more mature and we need to build on all our prior experiences.”
La Verne has two more away matches against Biola and Westmont before returning home for three consecutive matches. The Leopards will be looking to earn their first home victory of the season when they return on March 16 against Albion.
“The losses are not going to let us get down on ourselves,” senior Alisa Nadjaryan said. “We are going to continue to work hard to get more wins this season.”
Galo Pesantes can be reached at gpesantes@ulv.edu.
Galo Pesantes
