The Oglethorpe women's tennis team opened SAA play Friday afternoon with a tightly-contested match against a Berry team ranked 13th in the Atlantic South region. In the end, the Stormy Petrels fell 5-4 at the Downing Howell Courts, though, dropping them to 7-6 on the season overall and 0-1 in SAA play.
The Vikings took two of the three doubles matches to get things started and that put the Petrels behind the 8-ball in the early going. Freshman Shannon Cruz and sophomore Halley Sickling feel 8-4 at No. 2 doubles while senior MaryAnne Hafen and freshman Delaney Abood dropped the No. 3 match by the same score. The Petrels did get a victory at No. 1 doubles, with sophomore Caroline Johnson and senior Katherine Walker prevailing 8-6 in that match. That sent proceedings to the singles competition with the Vikings up 2-1.
In singles, Berry got a couple of victories early, beating junior Ingrid Wilcox 6-1, 6-1 at No. 3 and Cruz 6-0, 6-3 at No. 2. That vaulted Berry into a 4-1 lead. The Petrels got a match back when Johnson took care of her No. 1 singles match in straight sets against a quality Berry opponent. Johnson won 6-3, 6-4, making the score 4-2. However, Hafen fell 6-1, 6-3 at No. 4 moments later, clinching the match for the Vikings 5-2.
The Petrels picked up a couple victories after that, though. Sickling took down her No. 5 match in straight sets, winning 6-3, 6-2, while Abood hung in there and won a hotly contested match at No. 6, taking it in a second-set tiebreaker, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
"This was a tough match against a very good team, and we were missing our normal No. 3 singles player Katherine Walker, who's dealing with an injury," said Oglethorpe head coach Peter Howell. "I though we played well overall, though. We had a couple of chances to win, but just couldn't break through. Still, we put up a solid performance against a team that finished second in the league last year. I think there's a lot we can take from this moving forward."
The Petrels will next take on Agnes Scott down the road in Decatur, Georgia, Wednesday at 4 p.m. before traveling to Lookout Mountain, Georgia, on Thursday at 4 p.m. to go against Covenant. After that, they'll will return to SAA play next weekend.
