Posted: 04/18/07

Straight love
Women’s tennis breaking records

Izabela Socha | photo editor
isocha@smcvt.edu

Extremely cold seasons have not stopped the St. Michael’s College women’s tennis team from keeping its winning and almost perfect record for the past three seasons.

Record-breaking

The fall St. Michael's woman's tennis team. (photo courtesy of Cailie Burns)

Women’s tennis coach, Greg Cluff has kept the team strong by truly respecting his players and allowing them to set their own limits. Cluff has the second-most wins in program history with a 31-17 record for the past three seasons. The 2006-07 team has an overall finishing record of 12-6 and a first place Northeast-10 Conference record of 11-1. The victory over Southern New Hampshire University on April 18, lead the women's team to win the NE-10 regular conference season.

“We have the conference tournament, then we will have a quarter final match on Thursday; if we win that we will be in the semifinals at Stonehill,” Cluff says. “If we should win that we would go on to an NCAA tournament, and that is our goal, so we will just see what happens,” he says.

The tennis season is divided evenly between the two semesters of one academic year. The team begins practicing at the beginning of the fall semester and starts games in early September. It plays matches within the Northeast-10 Conference until mid-October then start the season in March. The March season kicks off with five matches held in Hilton Head, S. C. for a straight week.

The NE-10 quarterfinals will be held on April 19, the semifinals on April 21 and the Championship on April 22. If the women’s team makes it through all of the qualifying rounds the NCAA overall championship begins in early May, at the end of the spring semester.

Cluff says that general performance has strengthened tremendously over the years even with changes in the way tournaments have been played, but the doubles matches and players have improved the most, he says.

A family team

Cluff will have been involved with the St. Michael’s woman’s team for seven years at the finish of this season. In those seven years the team has had its best historical record. Individual players have improved dramatically and the team as a whole is shining within its record, Cluff says.

“[Cluff] is definitely not focused on the wins, he is focused on going out and playing our best.” -Senior, co-captain Cara Bednar says

“It’s a combination and it’s interesting because it is an individual sport yet we do have doubles which is very much a team thing,” Cluff says. “Your team can only do as well as every single individual does so it’s sort of that bit of a strange combination that has really clicked this year.”

Both the men’s and women’s teams go to Hilton Head for their spring breaks to train and start the spring season strong.

“We play in a tournament down there and it just makes us that much closer as a team and also to the guys team," junior Megan Conway says. “I think it really shows on the court too because you have a lot of support on and off the court.”

Personal best

Players say that although the coaching is not much different, it is one of the most relaxed teams not having as much emphasis on winning, but performing at personal best. Also, there is no weight or spotlight on the best performing players because everyone works as a team in the end.

“Our top players are really strong. Some of us are better at singles and some of us are better at doubles so we kind of complement each other,” senior co-captain Cailie Burns says.

Both Conway and senior co-captain Cara Bednar say that their personal performance can be accredited to the relaxed style of coaching for the team.

“[Cluff] is definitely not focused on the wins, he is focused on going out and playing our best,” Bednar says.

Members of the St. Michael's woman's tennis team (photo courtesy of Jaclyn Smullen)

Bednar has played tennis since she was almost three years old but says that she only became a solid doubles player during her time playing for the St. Michael’s woman’s team.

“I have definitely played for a bunch of different coaches and they really put a lot of pressure on you to do well but he puts pressure on you just to have a good time and he thinks that if we go out there and play the ball the results will come for themselves,” Bednar says.