This past weekend, Hillsdale tennis competed in its first three home matches against Ohio Dominican University on Friday, Ashland University on Saturday, and Tiffin University on Sunday. The team finished the weekend with victories of (5-4) over Ohio Dominican and (7-2) over Ashland, but fell to Tiffin (6-3) on the last match of the weekend.
Having not yet won a match this season, Hillsdale’s tennis team looks forward to the beginning of a successful season with its first two victories.
“We already had a few matches this season that didn’t really go our way, so we knew that we needed to go into this one strong,” head coach Nikki Walbright said. “Everyone was playing really hard and everything we’ve been working on finally came together.”
With this past weekend being the second weekend in a row that the team had three-matches, Walbright said that the tennis season can be tough both mentally and physically on the girls.
“It gets to be a lot and that’s just typical,” Walbright said, “that’s why we have to train so hard.”
Sophomore Rachel Blaauw said that although they were hoping to beat all three teams this weekend, they still played and competed well.
But even with a successful weekend now added to its record, the members of the tennis team focus on challenging themselves and motivating other members to do the same.
Playing in three singles matches and three doubles matches, sophomore Sydney Delp went undefeated and played an important role in the victory of the team. However, Delp looks at her accomplishments as a tool to push herself and her teammates to a higher level of performance at their matches.
“My contributions alone aren’t enough for a team win,” Delp said. “This week will be important for me to not only improve individually, but also make my teammates better.”
Remaining focused and grounded, the tennis team looks forward to having the upcoming weekend off and continues practicing for their approaching matches the first weekend of October.
“This past weekend was a decent start but we have to pull out close matches and improve each day,” Delp said. “That is the only way we will beat the tough teams that remain on our schedule.”
