Patriots overpower Blazers in tennis

Blazer tennis courts, Sept. 19—

The girls' tennis team lost 0-7 to the Wootton Patriots on Wednesday. Despite the defeat, the Blazers showed major improvement over previous games.

The fourth singles match finished first with a losing score of 6-0, 6-0. Because fourth singles sophomore Camilla Arias was not playing due to injury, alternative Song-Binh Ngo took her place. The next match to finish, first doubles, also had an alternative filling. Sophomore Therese Nkeng played instead of Amy Li, in China for the World Wushu Competition. Both Ngo and Nkeng felt that their opponents' skill contributed to their losses. "They had really good returns," Ngo said.

The second doubles team faced similar difficulties, resulting in a score of 6-0 and 5-1 While freshman Anu Sunkara thought they played well in the first set, critical mistakes led to the eventual loss. "In the second set, I kept missing shots I could've got," she said. "There were a lot of shots I made from the middle of the court where the ball went out."

Despite losing every match, coach David Ngbea believed that the team had improved from previous games. "They've been volleying more in the service box, which is contributing to more points," he said.

Second singles Allison Whitney agreed, feeling that her strokes showed improvement this match. "I had some really good angle shots and serves today," she said. This was echoed in the game, despite Whitney's final score of 6-0, 6-0. "Wootton is one of the best in the county so my expectations weren't that high, but [me and my opponent's] first point lasted a long time and we had a lot of back-and-forth rallies," she said.

Ngbea hopes to continue to work on strokes so that the team can improve further. "Right now, we're at the point where we hit one ball in then one ball out, so we need to work on ground shots for future games," he said.

The girls' tennis team will play its next home match against Sherwood at 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 29.