Men's & Women's Tennis: Despite norm, moderation doesn't work for men's tennis

By Sam Fran Scavuzzo
Senior Staff Writer
March 22, 2006

Moderation is good in most aspects of life. Enjoy that ice cream cone, but don’t eat too much. This concept can be applied to non-dairy items as well. However, on the athletic field, balancing a win with a loss is not conducive to a productive performance. That being said, this past weekend the men’s tennis team both won and lost matches, balancing out the good with the bad, to open its spring season with a record of 1-4 and an overall fall/spring record of 3-9.

Freshman Chris Butera won his singles match against Loyola.
Photo taken by Gwen Tuxbury.

Opening the spring season this past weekend, the women’s team looked to improve upon its fall record of 5-5, which is another example of Lasallian moderation. Unfortunately, on Sunday, March 19, the Explorers got shelled by the Loyola Greyhounds 6-1.

The men achieved their win on Saturday, March 18 at the same location, traveling down to Maryland to post a 4-3 victory over the Greyhounds.

Senior Marco Onorato, sophomore Eric Glick and freshman Chris Butera all notched singles victories in the win. Additionally, Onorato, in conjunction with junior Scott Karwowski, as well as the tandem of freshman Justin Feiner and junior Ross Flockerzie, won key doubles matches for the Explorers.

After the bus trip back up I-95 to 20th and Olney, the Explorers had the task of facing an Atlantic 10 opponent in the Fordham Rams. On the previous day, the Rams had been crushed by another A-10 school from Philadelphia, St. Joseph’s, who shut out the Rams 7-0. However, on Sunday, March 19, it was the Rams who did the crushing.

Sweeping the doubles matches and winning four out of six singles matches, Fordham beat La Salle on its own turf, 5-2. Victories by Onorato and Glick were the only bright spots for the Explorers.

Flockerzie, the team’s captain, expresses hope after the weekend split.

“A lot of us played well, but there is still room for improvement,” Flockerzie said. “Personally, I felt I should have done better in the matches against my opponents.”

As far as singles performances go, Flockerzie lost 6-4, 6-0 on Saturday against Loyola’s Sean Wall, but he put in a quality performance in his 7-6, 6-0, 7-6 (7-4) loss to Fordham’s Michael Misiti. In his doubles matches, he faired better.

Flockerzie appreciated the performance of his doubles partner Feiner, the newest addition to the squad. The two earned an 8-4 win over Loyola’s Tom Kelly & Sean Kroft, while suffering a tough 8-6 defeat at the hands of Fordham’s Sotiris Georgiou and Ben Ehrman.

“[Feiner’s] serves were great and they allowed me to focus playing up on the net,” Flockerzie said.

Senior Courtney Tereszcuk whacks the ball back to the opposition in a match
from last fall. Photo taken by Gwen Tuxbury.

To be fair, opening matches are tough for teams, and the women articulated this idea pretty well in their loss to Loyola. As always, though, there were several strong performances by the team. Freshman Lauren Perry notched the lone victory for La Salle with a tight 4-6, 7-5, 10-8 singles win over Christi Lazar. However, close matches were registered by both Dana Koch (6-4, 4-6, 6-2) and Courtney Tereszcuk (6-4, 6-7, 6-1 [5-7]). Tereszcuk, along side junior Joann Lee, was also the victim of a close 8-6 doubles defeat by Lazar & Meghan McKenna.

In the upcoming week, both teams will be very active. The women have three matches against St. Joseph’s, Manhattan and St. Mary’s on Thursday, Friday and Sunday, respectively. All are home games. As for the men, they will be taking on neighboring Philadelphia University in an away game on Thursday, and then will come home to battle St. Mary’s on Sunday.

Although Philadelphia University is a Division III school, the team will not change its game plan, according to Flockerzie.

“Our focus is the same: concentration on every shot and win every game we can,” he said. “Just get the ball back over the net, no matter who we are playing.”

scavuzzos1@lasalle.edu