The Oberlin women’s tennis team continued to roll along this week, gaining two important victories over Hope College last Saturday and Mt. Union College on Tuesday.
On Saturday, Mar. 9, the Yeomen took on Michigan’s Hope College, and won by a close 5-4 score. Junior captain Alaina Fotiu-Wojtowicz, who won her number one singles match, 6-1, 6-1 said, “The Hope match was a good one. They’re one of our toughest competitions, and it was a good win for us if we’re hoping to go to regionals. Whitney [Reichheld] was definitely the star of the match. She has a lower back injury. It was hurting her pretty bad and she still pulled out her win at number five. [First-year] Ary [Amerikaner] pulled out a tough one in her set at number two. Afterwards team morale is really good.”
Coach Don Hunsinger echoed Fotiu-Wojtowicz’s optimism saying, “We felt absolutely great about Saturday’s matches. It was a really tough match and we felt that we had a very good performance.”
The team then boosted their record to 5-0 by defeating Mt. Union with a 7-2 win on Tuesday. Leading the team were Fotiu-Wojtowicz, Amerikaner and first-year Jessica Hauser, who won their singles matches at numbers one, two, and four by scores of 6-0, 6-0; 6-0, 6-2; and 6-0, 6-0 respectively.

“For Tuesday’s matches, in singles we were really dominant, and you have to feel good about that,” Hunsinger said. “In doubles it gave us some things to work on, and when you play different styles of teams, it opens up new things that are available to do and new things you want to concentrate on, and we’re going to practice some of that today. We were very happy with the results.”
Assistant coach Adam Shoemaker added, “It was a good win on Saturday for the women, and another good one last night, staying in the groove.”

Both the men’s and women’s tennis teams now look toward carrying their success into the NCAC conference season, which begins next week. Shoemaker commented on this saying, “The guys are getting ready for this weekend, so we’ve got a big week coming up for the men’s team, with two matches this weekend and our first conference match. We play Hiram next Wednesday, which is the start of our half of the conference schedule.”
When asked whether he had any predictions to make, coach Hunsinger said, “I don’t think you can predict. That’s a tough thing to do. I predict that we’re going to get better and we’re going to play hard. That’s what I predict. We have some exceptionally good teams in our conference that have represented our conference in a tremendous fashion for several years and I don’t think that’s going to change this year. We hope to challenge those people, but we have to keep doing our thing and getting better every practice.”
“We’re just trying to get the guys all on the same page so we go into the conference season as a team, a unified front. So whatever happens, we face together,” added Shoemaker.

This Saturday, March 16, the women’s tennis team will face John Carroll University at home, while the men travel to Mount Union. The men will host Ohio Wesleyan on Sunday at 1 p.m. and on Wedneday the women host Hiram College, while the men play at Hiram. Both Wednesday matches begin at 4:30 p.m.