Penn tops Lions, clinches second place in Ivies

Going into its April 27 match against Columbia, the Penn women's tennis team needed a victory over the Lions to keep its Ivy League title chances alive. But even with a win, the Quakers still would have needed a Harvard loss in order to catch the Crimson in the standings. The Quakers (10-5, 6-1 Ivy League) did get the win they needed against the Lions by a score of 6-1, but were not helped by Brown, Yale or Dartmouth, who were unable to defeat defending conference champion Harvard. The win over Columbia (5-12, 1-6) completed a successful regular season for the Quakers and guaranteed them sole possession of second place in the conference. Their strong finish in the league is even more impressive when one considers the fact they played the last several weeks without No. 1 singles player Preety Sorathia. Sorathia's injury left the Quakers with two sophomore and four freshman int he six singles positions. "We exceeded a lot of people's expectations," Penn coach Cissie Leary said. "Losing Sorathia made the team play even harder." The Quakers easily swept the Lions at the three doubles positions by scores of 8-4, 8-4 and 8-6 with an especially good performance coming from the duo of co-captain senior Beth Brady and freshman Yukie Tokuda at No. 2 doubles. In singles play, the Quakers were completely dominant at the top three positions. Sophomore Lara Afanassiev won 6-3, 6-1 at the No. 1 singles, freshman Karen Ridley rolled to a 6-1, 6-0 victory at the No. 2, and freshman Julia Feldman breezed passed her opponent at the No. 3 singles, 6-2, 6-3. The Red and Blue also posted straight-set victories at the No. 4 and No. 5 singles positions. After winning difficult first sets by scores of 7-5, both Tokuda and sophomore Andi Grossman finished off their matches with easy second set victories 6-2 and 6-0 respectively. "Columbia is not a bad team, and they are getting better," Leary said. "So it was a really good win to finish off the conference season."