After playing three matches in five days, the Hillsdale women’s tennis team’s fall season came to a close.
On Friday, Hillsdale faced the highly regarded Northwood University team and fell 8-1.
Despite the loss, the Chargers made the Timberwolves work for the victory. Senior Morgan Delp and juniors Rachel Blaauw and Lindsay Peirce all pushed their opponents to three sets in their singles matches.
“I was beyond happy with the team and their effort,” head coach Nikki Walbright said. “We had extremely close doubles matches and also three three-set matches. Doing this against such a strong team shows how competitive we could be.”
On Sunday, the team held its final home match of the season against Saginaw Valley State University. A key match for the team, the Chargers were defeated 5-4 in a hard fought match.
“It was really competitive and we had awesome effort from everyone. Unfortunately, it just didn’t go our way,” Walbright said.
Morgan Delp won her singles match in a three set comeback, and won her doubles match with her sister, junior Sydney Delp, pulling out a 9-8 victory.
As the final home match of the season, the team honored its lone senior Morgan Delp for her four years of competing and captaining the team.
“Looking back on my career, that’s something that I take a lot of pride in: That we were the team that never made it easy for the other team, whether we won or lost,” Morgan Delp said. “It was always a fight.”
On Tuesday evening, the team competed in its final match against Wayne State University. The team suffered an 8-1 loss, bringing the season record to 3-9.
Although the team will not be attending the GLIAC championship tournament this year, they appreciate the competition and challenges they have faced this season.
“It’s great for the conference that so many teams have stepped up their game,” junior Linsday Peirce said. “It gives us something to strive towards for next season and will push us all to get to the top.”
Now the team looks forward to the change of pace offseason brings, and continuing to improve their game for the spring.
“We will be doing lots of training in the weight room and on the court, as well as reviewing match notes from the season,” Walbright said. “[We are] looking to improve as much as we can before spring.”