The Yellow Jacket’s women tennis team lost 9-0 to Geneva for the start of the fall season. This is the second season in a row that the Golden Tornadoes have shut out Waynesburg.
“For us it’s a tough team to play,” head coach Ron Headlee said. “They just make you hit a winning shot. Our goal going in was to stay patient and just hit winners.”
Even with a hot start by winning every first game on the day, Waynesburg struggled to hold the lead. The winning shot never came in any of the remaining nine matches.
“It hurt us a little bit that we had our first match cancelled,” said Headlee. “They had one match under their belt and we didn’t.”
Due to weather conditions, Waynesburg’s first scheduled match was postponed against Pitt Greensburg on Wednesday.
“Because of the rain we weren’t able to even practice,” said junior Hayley Sweeney. “It didn’t give us a chance to warm up before our game day.”
Headlee saw a lot of positive elements in facing adversity and was impressed with how the doubles played.
“We started out really well,” said Headlee. “All of the doubles, we were actually in those and could’ve pulled it out.”
The first doubles match of the day was played by senior Kyleigh Schmidt and Sweeney who lost 8-6.
“It was a hard loss for us but we never gave up,” said Sweeney. “The games were close for each of the players.”
Juniors Madison Ramsey and Marina Hastings had the closest match of the day. The partners were winning 7-6 before giving up a point to lose it in the tiebreaker.
“That was the first time Madison and Marina have played together,” said Headlee. “Marina showed a lot of improvement from last year.”
It was all success for Geneva in singles, defeating the Jackets in every set.
Waynesburg has seven returning players of the eight on the roster. All are upperclassmen.
The new face to the team, senior Emily Schafer, had a close first collegiate tennis match. Schafer was winning 4-2 in the sixth singles before Geneva’s Ella Miller came back to win the set 7-5.
“They’re realizing what they need to do to win,” said Headlee. “I still don’t think they have that finishing, they’re in the matches then I think it gets in their head a little bit.”
Headlee believes more improvement will come after their first win.
“Until you have some success winning it is hard to overcome the losses.”