The only thing the Temple women's tennis team didn't lose this Saturday was travel time. The Owls didn't have to journey far to get swept by Penn at the Levy Tennis Pavilion.
The Quakers went into the match feeling confident after easily defeating their cross-town rival last season. Expecting to win, the Red and Blue used this sense of assurance to get the job done without ever looking back.
The Quakers swept the doubles point to open the match on the right foot. At the No. 3 position, senior tri-captain Kate Williams and junior Caroline Stanislawski, started off their match slowly, losing three of the first four games.
However, they stepped up to win the last seven games to prevail over Laura Verall and Jennifer Goeta, 8-3.
At the No. 2 spot, Penn's Raluca Ciochina and Michelle Mitchell also started off slow. But they managed to pick it up in order to defeat Temple's Laura Seiverling and Sharanya Pattabi, 8-5.
"We didn't waste points or games and we were done with the doubles point early," said Williams.
Penn dominated the day in singles action as well. At the No. 3 spot, Mitchell only gave up one game as she defeated Verall in an impressive 6-1, 6-0 victory.
In similar fashion, at the No. 5 position, Williams gave up only two games as she breezed through Goeta for the second time of the day, 6-1, 6-1.
At the No. 6 spot, junior Sarah Schiffman followed suit, easily defeating Pattabi, 6-2, 6-2. The Quakers secured a win for the day as all six singles matches ended in Penn's favor, with the Quakers taking 12 of the 13 sets.
"We tried to stay focused and not to underestimate this team," said Ciochina. "Sticking to this strategy, "there were no surprises."
The Quakers improved to 6-4 on the season with the victory and are preparing to enter Ivy League play. Their first match in the Ancient Eight will come Saturday when they host Princeton at noon.
