Men's & Woman's Tennis: Explorers battle weather and opponents

By Mike McDonald
Collegian Staff
March 29, 2006

It was supposed to be a full weekend of action for both Explorer tennis teams, but Mother Nature had other plans. Both the men’s team and the women’s team did play this weekend, but as a result of the weather, the teams were only able to play some of what had originally been scheduled.

Freshman Lauren Perry converted a dominant 6-4, 6-2 singles performance against
St. Joeseph’s on Thursday, March 23. Photo taken by Gwen Tuxbury.

On Thursday, March 23, both teams were in action against some local rivals. The men traveled to Philadelphia University, while the women hosted Saint Joseph’s.
In the men’s contest, the team had a good day of work and defeated Philadelphia University by a score of 5-2.

Senior Marco Onorato, junior Scott Karwowski, sophomore Eric Glick and freshman Chris Butera won their singles matches. La Salle also collected the doubles point, and rolled to victory. With the win, the men’s team improved to 4-9 on the season.

“Everyone played really well,” Karwowski said. “Marco and I lost our doubles match and the sixth singles match, but overall, the team turned in a pretty solid performance.”
Thursday was less successful for the women’s tennis team, who hosted the Saint Joseph’s Hawks. The Explorers dropped the match, 4-3.

Junior Joann Lee and freshman Lauren Perry earned victories in their singles competitions, and the Explorer doubles teams outplayed the squad from Hawk Hill to earn the extra point. However, it was not enough, and Saint Joseph’s won the overall match.

“I think everyone put forth their best effort,” senior Dana Koch said. “The matches were close and could’ve gone either way, and we managed to win two of three doubles matches.”
The Manhattan Jaspers came to town on Saturday, March 25 to face the Explorer women’s tennis team. The game had initially been scheduled for later in the day, but impending weather forced the time change.

The weather actually did make an impact on the match, as the doubles competition had to be canceled because of the conditions. However, the teams were able to get all the singles matches in before the weather hit.

In singles play, the Explorers put up a pretty good fight, but only two of the players were able to get wins. Sophomore Krista Benedette and senior Courtney Tereszcuk were able to gain points for the team by winning their respective matches. The final score, without the doubles play, was 4-2, with Manhattan on top.

The loss by the women’s team dropped it to 5-8 on the year.
“I think everyone tried to do the best they could, but it was tough just playing in singles matches,” Koch said. “Some of our matches went three sets, which is good, but we wound up losing pretty bad.”

On the slate for Sunday was a matchup with St. Mary’s for both the men and the women. Weather conditions ended any chance of that happening, and the matches for Sunday were canceled.

The women’s team has a week of three games coming up. Today, the team will host Philadelphia University. Saturday, April 1, it will travel to West Chester, and on Sunday, April 2, it will be back home against Morgan State.

“I feel decent going forward,” Koch said. “We should do well against Philly U. because we beat them last fall. Then we play West Chester and Morgan State, and we should probably come out of those games with some wins, or at least some close games. After that, we’ll hopefully play better at A-10s than we did last year.”

The men have a full week up ahead as well. On Thursday, March 30, the Temple Owls will make the trip up Broad Street for a Big Five battle. This weekend, the men will have the same two matchups that the women have. They will be at West Chester on Saturday and home against Morgan State on Sunday. After this weekend, the men have only one more scheduled game in the regular season, against Drexel on Tuesday, April 4.

“It’s going to be really tough [the rest of the way going into A-10s],” Karwowski said. “We are playing Temple on Thursday and they are really good, so that’s going to be tough. However, we’ve been playing well lately, so although it’s going to be tough, we’re preparing ourselves for A-10s. We’ll see what happens.”

The teams will look to these last few matches as a way to improve their records and tune up before going into the Atlantic 10 Championships at the end of the season.

mcdonaldm2@lasalle.edu