Tennis Grabs Another Win on Senior Day

COURTESY PHOTO OF PSU ATHLETICS

Tennis capped their regular season this past weekend ending on a strong nine win streak. Their final match-up was against Bridgewater State University on home court in Holderness as they recognized their seniors. Irene Kigugu (Concord NH) and Megan Wheeler (Manchester NH) played their final regular season game and now they prepare for Little East Conference finals. Kigugu commented, “We feel great, confident, and ready to take on the playoffs. We have come a long way and worked so hard to get this far and we’re not about to back down now, we are still in the game and we are not going down without putting up a fight.”

Gaining this win put the Panthers at 11-2 overall and 8-1 in the LEC and secured them the number two seed. It started off with Sage Winter (New Castle NH) and Maggie McCarthy (Marion MA) playing in their double match, winning 8-3. Jenna Sundquist (Monument Beach MA) and Kerstin Venincasa (Sutton MA) had a close score in their doubles match, going back and forth for points and being at 5-4 at one point. But the dynamic duo scored the next three points grabbing the win. Coming back from a back and forth game is hard, as Venincasa said “50% of tennis is mental”. Also adding, “…my teams performance as well as my own has been both very focused and determined. I believe we have gone into every match with the same drive and hope to win. This year I feel that the team, myself included, has either maintained or developed a very good mentality.”

From there, the senior pair shot out quickly with a 7-2 lead, but it wouldn’t be given up that easily. A Bridgewater pair pulled out three points to only make it a two point lead, but the girls killed it to gain the win. Wheeler walked into her single matches and kept her opponent to only score a maximum of two points and won both her sets. Winter had the same results in her final singles match with 6-3 and a scoreless 6-0 for her. Kigugu won two sets to push Plymouth’s lead to 6-1. The final two points were gained by the pair of McCarthy and Venincasa in a tough match but were able to rebound and refocus to a 10-6. The final point was scored by Venincasa in her singles match. It wasn’t looking good in the beginning as she lost the first set but came back hard getting a 6-0 and the winning the breaker 10-4. 

“For both doubles and singles, we went into it knowing what we had to do to get the job done. We knew we didn’t have room for errors, so we played hard from the get-go. Plus, it was Megan and I’s last time playing on the home courts, so we had to make it count. The outcome was great as the score shows it (8-1) and we were pleased about it” Kigugu said about her team’s performance. There was nothing that didn’t work for this team, everything fell into place with teammate and dedication. “We went on the courts to play doubles with confidence and we carried that into our singles as well. As the underclassmen said before the match, “We have to win this for our seniors, Megan and Irene” and that is exactly what they did.”

The Panthers earned a bye for the first round of playoffs and will enter into semi-finals today at Rhode Island College. Opponent will be the winner of the match-up from seed 3 and 6. Time is not announced yet.