On a perfect September afternoon, Mercersburg’s women’s tennis team took to the courts on Wednesday to face a very strong State College Senior High School.  The Blue Storm was led by Lena Finucane, Valerie Garcia, and Lucia Rowe, the team's solid core of upper-middlers.  The matches are played in a seven point format:  six singles matches each worth a point, and three doubles matches, with the winner of the majority gaining that seventh point.  While the Blue Storm lost 6-1, the afternoon featured several intense match-ups that could have gone either way.

The three sets of doubles were played first.  Mercersburg was led by Finucane and Rowe going against State College's top-ranked duo.  While Finucane and Rowe came out swinging they were beat 8-0 in a pro-set.  Despite the score, the match was much closer due to several games going to deuce but none rolling the Storm's way.  The second duo was made up of Garcia and Kelsie Bittle '08, who quickly jumped out to a solid lead and held on to win their match 8-3.  The Storm’s final doubles pairing of senior Emily Weiss and upper-middler Laura Wirtavuori from Finland started out strong, going stroke for stroke with State College, but was unable to hold on, losing 2-8.

The singles matches were also very competitive. Fincuane played against State’s top-seeded heavy hitter Alexa Gregory and, despite giving Gregory a run for her money on several points, Finucane lost in straight sets.  Second on board was Garcia, who met a formidable opponent in Corinn Jones.  Garcia really came on strong near the end of both sets but was unable to catch up, losing a solid match 6-2, 6-1.  After the match Garcia felt pleased with her play, noting that she has been striking the ball much better. 

Third-seeded Rowe endured a marathon first set that was marked by minute-long rallies and several long deuces.  The first set saw Rowe playing catch-up before pulling ahead 6-5, then losing a game which featured several deuces, leading to a tiebreak where each player seemed to get a second wind.  Rowe won the tiebreak 7-5 and then handily won the second set 6-1. 

The other marathon match involved Bittle who, despite losing the first set, came back strong and won the second.  That set the stage for an excruciatingly intense ‘super tiebreak’ to 10 points.  Both teams and fans stood by and cheered on the players.  Bittle’s final match score was 6-4, 4-6, (7-10).  The fifth singles match featured Natasha Sukerkar '08 competing closely with Abbie Swambola, but Sukerkar was unable to overtake her opponent, losing 3-6, 3-6.  The final match found Soo Yeun Sim '09 hitting a very close contest with opponent Kate Carpenter.  Despite losing the first set Sim, caught up and forced a tiebreak, where Carpenter pulled away, 6-3, 7-6 (7-1).

Despite losing against one of the toughest opponents on its schedule, the team maintained a very positive viewpoint and is not looking back as they focus on their next match Saturday against Chambersburg High School, right here at the Smoyer Tennis Center, home of the Blue Storm.  For more information, please visit the team’s page here on the web.

--by student reporter Peter Cooke '08