Men
The men’s team extended its winning streak to eight by posting two more victories, the first against Tufts and the second against No. 22 Skidmore.
The top-ranked Jeffs began the day on Sunday (April 15) by squaring off against the Jumbos for their third NESCAC match of the season. Though the Tufts squad was only 5-6 on the year, it had scored two recent shutouts in conference play against Conn. College and Wesleyan. Mark Kahan ’13 and Chris Dale ’14 made sure the Jeffs would not let their guard down, starting strong with an 8-5 win in doubles play. Also posting victories in doubles were Robby Sorrel ’12 and Wes Waterman ’12 as well as the tandem of Andrew Scheiner ’15 and Jon Cypers ’15.
In singles action, it was Joey Fritz ’14 who shined, beating Tufts’ Ben Barad by a score of 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. Scheiner also closed out the match with a victory, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1; the Jeffs came out on top, 7-2.
In the afternoon, Amherst faced a tougher test in the form of Skidmore, a top-25 ranked team who stood at 7-4. Again, however, the Jeffs wasted no time in jumping out ahead, with Luis Rattenhuber ’13 and Austin Chafetz ’12 headlining doubles action by taking their set, 8-5. Sorrel and Waterman played solidly again, this time triumphing by an 8-3 margin.
Rattenhuber also recorded a singles victory (6-3, 4-6, 10-5) over Oliver Loutsenko, while Andrew Jung ’12 turned in the performance of the day with a 6-0, 6-0 sweep against Luke Granger. In all, the Jeffs had a relatively easy time dispatching the Thoroughbreds by the same 7-2 score.
On Saturday, the Jeffs will face another ranked opponent, No. 24 Trinity, who has won its last two conference games. The following day, they will travel to Williamstown for a face-off with the archrival Ephs before concluding the regular season on April 28-29 against Middlebury and Wesleyan.
Women
The No. 3 Lady Jeffs split two weekend games, shutting out Colby before dropping a close decision to No. 2 Emory.
The Amherst squad improved to 8-3 on Saturday morning (April 14) with a resounding victory over the Mules. The Lady Jeffs lost only six games in doubles play; Caroline Richman ’13 and Safaa Aly ’15 headlined the action with an 8-1 win at the number two spot in the lineup. Then, the Jeffs swept their singles matches without dropping a game, with Jennifer Newman ’14 leading the way at the top slot.
Unfortunately, the Lady Jeffs could not carry their momentum from the 9-0 win into the second match of the day. Emory had lost to Middlebury the previous day (April 13), but they managed to edge out the Jeffs largely on the strength of their doubles play. The duo of Gabrielle Clark and Zahra Dawson defeated Amherst’s Laura Danzig ’12 and Gabby Devlin ’14, 8-5, while Brenna Kelly and Malavika Padmanabhan topped Zoe Pangalos ’14 and Jennifer Newman ’14 by the same score. Newman and Caroline Richman ’13 posted strong wins in singles play, but their efforts were not enough as Emory took the match, 5-4.
The Lady Jeffs will continue NESCAC play today as they head to Trinity before traveling further north to Bowdoin on Saturday, April 21. From there, they will host three more critical conference matches against Tufts, Wesleyan and Middlebury during the week of April 23.
