SWEET BRIAR, Va. – Sweeping their quartet of doubles matches, the Guilford College women's tennis team claimed a 5-3 overall mark in a successful showing at the Battle of Blue Ridge Tournament, hosted by Sweet Briar College at the Dennis Van Der Meer Tennis Courts on Friday.
Originally slated to be a round-robin at each flight as opposed to a true, bracket-style tournament featuring the Quakers alongside a cluster of Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) rivals, the University of Lynchburg, Randolph-Macon College, Shenandoah University, and the hosts, Sweet Briar, time constraints shortened the competition. As a result, each doubles tandem had a pair of matches while each player got a single match in singles play.
Carolina Dirk (Port Aransas, Texas) and
Brooke Tsuei (Summerfield, N.C.) showed out at the top of the lineup card in doubles with a tandem of comfortable victories. They handled Lynchburg's Isabella Ascencio and Isabela Florez 6-2 in their first match before besting R-MC's Meckenzie Letellier and Victoria Updike by an identical score.
Competing in the second flight,
Zara Goolsby (Greensboro, N.C.) and
McKenna Merritt (Dobson, N.C.) also handled business for the Quakers. They swept their opener against Shenandoah's Abigail Loya and Emerie Meredith, 6-0, then drew another Hornets tandem, Lucy Goldman and Capri Blankenship, and nearly duplicated the feat, settling for a 6-1 win.
Into singles action, Dirk would claim GC's lone victory over Randolph-Macon's Meckenzie Letellier in dominant fashion, 6-0, 6-0. Marina Foureaux of Lynchburg surpassed Merritt in the second flight, 6-0, 6-2. Tsuei and Yellow Jacket Campbell Andrulot ended up in a dogfight in the third flight, but Andrulot came back to take the match, 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 (10-8). Finally, Lynchburg's Megan Tinsley surpassed Goolsby, 6-0, 6-0 in the fourth flight.
This wraps up the Quakers' fall slate of completion, as they will not hit the clay again until Sunday, February 21 when they visit Division-II Barton College.
#GoQuakes
