W. Tennis reaches ECAC semis

With each passing tournament, the confidence of the Penn women's tennis team grows dramatically. As well it should. After solid showings in the fall's individual tournaments, Penn cruised to the semifinals of the East Coast Athletic Conference Championships, its first team competition of the season. The Quakers were the No. 6 seed in what head coach Michael Dowd called "the biggest event of the fall season." Penn, playing at the Princeton tournament site, started its weekend Friday afternoon with a 6-0 thrashing of George Washington. The doubles matches were not played, since the outcome was already decided in the singles sweep. No Quaker lost more than three games in a set, including No. 5 singles player freshman Louani Bascara, who double-bageled her opponent, 6-0 6-0. Later on Friday, Penn squared off with host Princeton, the tournament's No. 3 seed, in a quarterfinal showdown. Penn took the top five singles matches en route to a 5-1 victory. All of the Quaker wins came in straight sets, while freshman No. 6 Jolene Sloat dropped a close three-set decision, 6-3 4-6 6-4. In Saturday morning's semifinal, Penn fell to No. 2 seed Virginia, 5-2. No. 1 singles player Anastasia Pozdniakova and No. 2 Karen Ridley both won their matches, but the other four singles were kept off the scoreboard. Penn first doubles Ridley and Julia Feldman could not keep the match alive, falling 8-3 to the Cavaliers. Bascara and Sloat both came out on the short end of nail-biting singles matches, Bascara losing 6-3 4-6 7-6 (7-5) and Sloat 6-3 7-6 (7-5). "We weren't afraid out there, we took good risks and fed off each other," Dowd said. "The excitement and energy went from court to court and that was the key. "We came within a few points of extending the Virginia match into the doubles, and Virginia is a very strong team." Senior tri-captain Ridley was equally pleased. "We played good tennis, but we also bonded as a team. Socially we had a great time, and camaraderie is a big part of college tennis," she said. The last event of the season is the ITA regionals, a home tournament beginning Nov. 6. The Quakers then have a three-month break from competition. "The fall season went even better than we expected," Ridley commented. "In my experience, this is the first year the team has pulled together so well in the fall. That usually doesn't happen until spring break," she said, referring to the squad's California trip in early March. Since the beginning of the year, the team's predominant goal has been a simple one: to win the Ivy League. The team clearly thinks this goal is attainable, especially after its lopsided defeat of Princeton, the highest-seeded Ivy team in the tournament. "We still need to work on our doubles. Most of our matches will come down to doubles, and if we can consistently rely on those three points, we'll be unstoppable in the Ivies," Ridley said. "The team is progressing beautifully," Dowd agreed. "Numbers 1 through 14 [on the roster] are pushing each other, and we're all getting better together. It's exactly what you want."