Women’s tennis hits the courts
Photo courtesy of Gettysburg Athletics. Junior Laura Gradiska improved to 4-1 with a win at No. 2 singles against Nazareth.
By Jacob Verner, Staff Writer
The Gettysburg College Women’s Tennis Team started the season out on the right foot with a win against Messiah at home five games to four. Since then the team has struggled to maintain their winning ways.
At home at Gettysburg College, the team has a one and one record losing to Catholic.
After the two game homestead, the team travelled down to Hilton Head, South Carolina for a tournament where they played five matches. In matches against, Carroll, Roanoke, and Nebraska-Wesleyan, the Lady Bullet’s lost by one game in each match.
Senior Lindsay Meier wants to “focus on recovering from mistakes” since “tennis is such a mental game and simple mistakes can affect the rest of the game”. The same goes for the entire squad which could easily have five wins and two losses instead of their current record.
After the difficult Hilton Head Tournament, the team closed out the tournament with a decisive six to three win over Nazareth. Junior and Captain, Laura Gradiska won her match in straight sets against Allison Friends of Nazareth by a score of 7-6 (7-3) and 6-4, as did first-year starter Maria Martinovic. Martinovic won by a margin of 6-1 and 6-2. Junior Captain Gillian Minnerly also won her match in straight sets 6-1 and 6-2.
Although the team would have liked to come away from the tournament with more wins, Meier believes the team is, “working hard to beat Franklin and Marshall” and “improve to at least a .500 winning percentage before the Centennial Conference Tournament”.
The Lady Bullet’s have two matches against non-conference foes before six consecutive games against Centennial conference rivals, McDaniel, Muhlenberg, Swarthmore, Dickinson, Ursinus, and Franklin and Marshall.
The team is working on “improving their strength and fitness levels to be in the best shape possible for the rest of the season” to be able to be fresh at the end of matches and close them out. Although the Lady Bullets would have liked to start the season on a higher note, they remain upbeat about the remainder of the season.
Be sure to watch the Lady Bullets on the tennis courts by the battlefields at their next home match on March 30 against McDaniel!
