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BY JOSH ABEL

In print | Published March 6, 2008

This past Saturday, March 1, Swarthmore’s women’s tennis team opened up its Centennial Conference schedule with a completely dominant victory over McDaniel College.

Playing indoors at the Mullan Tennis center, the Garnet blasted the Green Terror 9-0, losing only one game in the nine matches.

The Garnet swept through the doubles competition with ease, winning all three eight-game pro sets 8-0.

Then, the top 3 singles positions squared off. Jennie Park ’09 and Jamie Midyette ’08, playing first and second, respectively, breezed their way to 6-0, 6-0 victories. At third singles, Rebecca Commito ’10 dominated her opponent thoroughly also, but did yield a game. She was forced to settle for a 6-0, 6-1 victory.

With the Garnet up by six matches with just three left to play, it was decided that the fourth, fifth and sixth singles players would play eight-game pro sets, as opposed to the longer three-set format. Luann Cignavitch ’11, Sofia Gall ’09 and Kearney Bangs ’10 all cruised to 8-0 victories.

For those counting, that’s a combined game score of 84-1.

This is pretty close to as thorough a beating as one tennis team can inflict on another. And the Swarthmore women did so while not playing with their usual top singles player, Rachel Wallwork ’10.

Playing in a lopsided match like the one on Saturday is a very different experience than playing in a typical, competitive match. Such clean-cut victories often cause a change in approach. “A match like Saturday is a great opportunity to try out some shots you may not be comfortable trying in a more competitive match … Being able to win points off these shots gives you confidence to use them in those more competitive matches,” Commito said.

The Garnet did a tremendous job of handling the lack of competition, as the 84-1 aggregate game score would suggest, though Commito laments that it was probably a drop in her focus that cost her a game in the second set of her singles match.

“Staying focused and ‘up’ for a match when you know you are the better team can be a real challenge. I thought we did a very nice job of staying within our game plan and not letting their play dictate how we executed. We’ll definitely keep those lessons for our future matches when we play against the top teams of the conference,” Coach Jeremy Loomis said.

The team certainly welcomed its impressive showing after its tough loss to New York University, 4-5, a week prior. The team is now 1-1 overall and 1-0 in the Centennial Conference.

The win over McDaniel was the team’s last match before spring break, but the women will be quite busy over break. They will be spending six days in Spain. “We’ll be playing three days on the red clay against Spanish women’s tennis teams and also experiencing the Iberian culture. It’s going to be a memorable trip,” Loomis said.

The trip should prove to be an important team-building experience, in addition to being a lot of fun.

Saturday’s match was a good step in that same process. You may never see a beating that thorough again, at the collegiate level or any other.

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