The Hillsdale College women’s tennis team suffered a loss against Grand Valley State University on Feb. 12, finishing 2-5.
Freshman Libby McGivern said going into the match, she felt the team was prepared to compete following the successes of the previous weekend’s match. Although the Chargers lost, McGivern said the team stayed positive throughout the match.
“We all fought to the last moment,” McGivern said. “Even though it didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to, we still had a great time cheering for each other and growing as a team in our skills.”
Junior Canela Luna and McGivern played doubles against Vasileia Griva and Vera Griva, losing the match 1-6.
Though the pair lost their match, McGivern said they excelled in doing what she called “one-two punches.” After using this technique, she said she and Luna always share a look of excitement.
“One of us will hit a great serve and the other one will just dive across the net and take the ball as a volley and put it away past both of our opponents,” McGivern said. “That’s always super fun because we both did such a good job and added to the point equally. It wasn’t just one of us winning the point while the other was standing out there on the court.”
Senior Sarah Hackman and freshman Melanie Zampardo played doubles together, finishing 6-7 (3-6) against Marily Canellopoulos and Marija Leko.
“Our doubles match was super fun,” Zampardo said. “We had really high level points and every game could have gone either way.
In her singles match, Zampardo lost 2-6 and 2-1.
“If I could do my singles match again I would try to do a better job playing more offensive points instead of letting my opponent dictate what happened,” Zampardo said.
McGivern, on the other hand, won her first match 6-3, but lost her second and third matches, finishing 0-6 and 5-7, respectively. She said she wishes she would’ve held onto the points longer.
“In the first set, I did a very good job of playing aggressively and really taking it to her but she stepped it up in the second set,” McGivern said. “What really helped me come back in the third was changing up the pace and pushing her back so that I could step into the court and take more ground. I think if I had done that more throughout the match, it might have gone differently.”
The Chargers will compete again on Feb. 20 at 10:30 a.m. at the Ferris State University Bulldogs. The Bulldogs were ranked 21st in the nation in the ITA Preseason poll.
“My goal personally is to stay in that grinding mentality that I had in my match last weekend of just fighting down for the last point,” McGiver said, “Never believing that I’m losing, but always thinking that I’m just playing until the match is over.”
