West Chester University’s tennis squads both finished up their season on Thursday with 9-0 wins against Eastern University. Even though the men lost in the semi-finals and the women in the quarterfinals in the past week, each of the teams returned home for one more match against Eastern University. It was senior day for both squads so the lineups featured mostly, if not all, seniors.
The West Chester Men faced only one three-set match on the day as Andrew Peterson, Brandon Oyama, David Goldenberg, and Steve Hlava all won in straight sets in their singles matches. The only three-set match was at number one singles where Luan Kichen ended up winning the match. The player of the match for the men went to Wanzell Flemming as he won his singles match 6-0, 6-0, and Flemming and Cody Leimback won at doubles 8-0. The women also won their match 9-0 as Brittany Counts, Alison Fetter, Alex Santoro, and Nicole Nardi all won their matches in straight sets. Haley Wissinger and Jami Dumler won their matches in three sets. Alex Santoro proved to be the player of the day for the Golden Rams as she won her singles match against Kim Kirk 6-0, 6-0 and won her doubles match with Nicole Nardi 8-2. Seniors for the West Chester women’s team include Brittany Counts, Gabriela Durand, Alison Fetter, and Alex Santoro. For the men, David Goldenburg, Luan Kichen, and Brandon Oyama all played their last matches at WCU.
West Chester tennis took big strides this season, as the men captured their first ever PSAC regular season title, a number one seed in the playoffs, and their first .500 season under coach Tina Tharp (10-10, 4-1 in the conference). The women posted an even better record of 14-9 and 4-1 in the conference. When asked about her departing seniors on her women’s team, Coach Tharp stated, “I’m graduating my top three players (they were my first recruits to sign NLIs to play for WCU) and I’m hoping the recruiting class that I’m bringing in next year will be able to fill their shoes. I’ve seen the incoming freshmen compete, and I’m pretty sure that they’ll be ready to continue the success of the WCU women’s tennis program.” Coach Tharp expressed a great deal of confidence that the success of the tennis program will continue to be on the upswing.
Ryan Calpin is a first-year student majoring in communications with a minor in journalism. He can be reached at RC784188@wcupa.edu.