The DePauw women's tennis team posted an impressive end to the fall season this past weekend in Fort Myers, Fla.
With a sixth place finish over the weekend by senior Caroline Emhardt and junior Maggie MacPhail, DePauw's women's team continued a tradition of success in Division III doubles, with a second consecutive doubles berth in the small college championship.
This year's representatives had their hands full once the draw was released. Emhardt and MacPhail drew the second seeded pairing from Williams College, Kara Shoemaker and Rebecca Curran, for their first match on Thursday afternoon.
Emhardt and MacPhail started out strong by winning the first set by a score of 6-4, but after a change in strategy by the Williams' pairing, DePauw's doubles team dropped the second set 1-6. The strategic shift by Shoemaker and Curran took the DePauw team out of their comfort zone.
"They started hitting heavy topspin balls that pushed us back," Emhardt said. "So we weren't able to attack the net like we normally do."
DePauw then found themselves down 7-3 in the super-tiebreaker before they battled back to contest the tiebreaker, until they eventually fell 7-10.
The first round loss was disappointing, but Williams College went on to win the National Championship without dropping another set. Emhardt and MacPhail were the only pair to push the eventual champions to a third set, a definite display of the promise for spring season.
"We almost beat the team that won it all, and that will help our confidence for spring [season]," Emhardt said. "Not just Maggie [MacPhail] and me, but our whole team can compete with the best in the country."
On Friday night, the DePauw tandem was back in action, in the consolation draw for the National Tournament. Emhardt and MacPhail played another unseeded pair from The University of St. Thomas (Minn.). The St. Thomas doubles team of Kara Lefsrud and Bridget Noack kept the match close with scrappy play, but the DePauw team pulled out a straight set victory, 6-3 and 7-5, to bounce back from their first round loss the day before.
In the final match of the weekend, the DePauw pairing played for the right to fifth place in the country. In a Friday night match that created a double header for Emhardt and MacPhail, the DePauw doubles team lost in a closely contested match against the University of Texas - Dallas doubles team of Casey Johnson and Auvi Tran. While the score was 6-4 and 6-2, Emhardt felt like the match was more even than the score might suggest.
"The teams were fairly even, but we were never able to turn it around in our favor," Emhardt said.
The final loss, which dropped Emhardt and MacPhail to a sixth place national finish was disappointing, but it is still an improvement on last year's seventh place finish and helps to cement the DePauw team's strength in doubles.
The fall success is an important building block going forward for the women's team. The primary tennis season is during the spring, making individual success during the fall an opportunity for team members to gain important experience playing in important pressure-filled points and battling through difficult matches.
The spring season will begin when the second semester commences after Winter Term. As a senior, Emhardt has high hopes for the team's success in the upcoming spring campaign.
"[I] cannot wait to play one more spring season to see how well we can do and how far we can go in May."