Sports

Girls Tennis Looks to Bring Home New England Title Again

Trying to perform a repeat of last year’s incredible season, Andover’s Girls Varsity Tennis has already begun. ?Winning with a score of 14-1 against BB&N on their home court, Andover convincingly beat their ISL opponent for its first victory of the year. Six sets of the nine overall matches were won six games to none. Although the team’s roster had not been definitely set and the team only had one outdoor practice before the meet, it seemed that their drive and focus were all they really needed in order to win. Co-Captain Lauren Wilmarth ’09 remarked, “It is hard to get much better than that, and this bodes well for the rest of the season.” Although they lost four seniors, there are six returners and a very talented pool of newcomers. The six returning players include Carolyn Brown ’09, Emelyn Chew ’09, Co-Captain Eliza Flynn ’10, Midori Ishizuka ’11, Elizabeth Kelly ’11, and Stacia Vladimirova ’11, as well as Lauren and Victoria Wilmarth ’09. Lauren Wilmarth was Ranked No. 12 last year in the U18 division in New England, proving that she is certainly one of the individuals to beat on this year’s team. Last year, the girls took home first place out of 15 in the NEPSAC tournament at Milton. This was the first time that Andover had ever taken home the championship title. It was in this tournament that Flynn placed 3rd in the A singles bracket, even though she did not receive a seed going into competitive play. In the same tournament, Lauren Wilmarth received first place in the B singles bracket, where she won all four of her matches, and later went on to defeat the number two seed from Milton in her final match. Although they have some very large shoes to fill with the loss of so many seniors to graduation, the girls are exceptionally confident that they can bring back a champion title again. With three matches coming up on Friday, Saturday and Monday, and only one day of practice, the team knows it must be very focused in order to keep their momentum going. The captains are tremendously positive and have a vast amount of faith in this coming season, especially because the girls have so much potential. Flynn said, “With such an impressively high level of play at such an early point in the season, I am very proud of the way that everyone stepped up.” She continued, “We have not had much time together, but from what I can tell everyone who is playing is excited to play and focused on the long-term goals of the team.”