Women's Tennis: Holt battles to top in regional tournament

In the first round of the tournament, the Jeffs breezed, as Rachel Holt ’05 took home a 6-0, 6-1 win, Tristan Hedrick ’05 won 6-0, 6-2, and co-captain Paige Lawrence ’03 won 6-4, 6-4, before bowing out in the second round.

Kristen Raverta ’06, the Jeffs top seeded singles player, received a bye through the first round, and in the second round she led the Jeffs with a 6-1, 6-1 victory.

Holt and Hedrick also made their way through the second round. Holt, in what became a recurring trend, coasted through with a 6-1, 6-1 win. Hedrick had a bit tougher time, taking home a 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 win.

In the quarterfinals, it was the same story, with all three Amherst players taking easy wins. This set up a semifinal match between Holt and Hedrick, Amherst’s super sophomores.

Holt took one of the best matches of the tournament, winning a 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 battle against her teammate. Raverta fell in the other semifinal to Cheryl Hickey of Coast Guard, 6-0, 6-3, failing to make it an All-Amherst final.

In the final, Holt fell in the first set, 4-6, but she battled back in the final two, winning 6-3, 6-4. In the doubles competition, Amherst’s team of Lawrence and Raverta reached the finals, but was unable to make it a sweep of both the singles and doubles tournaments.

In the first two rounds, the tandem took home identical 8-4 victories, while in the semifinals they cruised to an 8-3 win. The final was a different story though, as a single break by the team of Mallory and Troy from Williams College led to a 9-7 loss for the Amherst side.

“We completely dominated the tournament; everyone played really well,” said Holt. “Our performance set us up as the team to beat this fall.”

This weekend, the Jeffs swing back into action with a trip back to Maine, where they will face Colby, Bowdoin and Bates Colleges over the weekend.