College Women’s Action: UVA Sweeps Final Round, Defeats Vassar, 6-3
by Rob Dinerman
Dateline December 1st --- Showing amazing staying power and perseverance in their third match of a very hectic Saturday, the University Of Virginia women’s team earned a fully deserved 6-3 win over Vassar Saturday evening at the Streetsquash facility on 115th Street in New York. Tied at three matches apiece after the second round of play, UVA swept the Nos. 7, 4 and 1 positions, displaying a match maturity that belies their (hopefully soon to change) current status as a club sport.
Vassar had taken an early lead, largely on the strength of Andrea Fehmy’s taut (three tiebreakers) victory at No. 8 and especially the dramatic comeback win that No. 3 Sanam Khanna was able to record over Alice Kister, who led 9-5 in the fifth and had a total of three match-balls, only to see Khanna win the final three points to eke out a 13-11 tally. But probably the match that swung the momentum permanently in UVA’s favor occurred shortly thereafter at No. 2, where sophomore Celia Dyer, a Tabor Academy alumna and converted tennis player, showed remarkable mobility in her straight-set win over her counterpart Alex Bodwitch, who played well but was overwhelmed by Dyer’s aggressive volleying and athleticism, which have carried her to an undefeated mark so far this season.
Her victory, UVA’s fourth of the dual meet, put the outcome onto the racquet of Kelly Whelan, the former Greenwich Academy torch-bearer who was actually playing her FOURTH match of the day, having also played at No. 9 for the men’s team, which brought only eight men players into their battle with Fordham up in the Citysquash facility earlier in the day. In a match-up of the schools’ respective senior No. 1’s, she raced off to a 6-0 lead against Vassar captain Libby Pei and never relinquished her advantage, upping the pace to a degree that forced open balls and, eventually, errors from her beleaguered opponent, who was never able to reverse the flow of the exchanges. A gallant late-game surge by Pei made the second game close, but Whelan ran off the last few points of that stanza and sprinted through the close-out third to clinch the team outcome even before her teammate Charlotte Seiler was able to finish off her four-game win over Vassar’s Jill Levine. It was an uplifting triumph for the UVA squad and its coach Grant White, and a sign that this program, which will be getting a huge boost when a major squash facility currently under construction is ready for play next season, is definitely on the rise.
Meet Summary: UVA 6, Vassar 3
No. 1: Kelly Whelan (UVA) d. Libby Pei (Vassar), 11-3, 7 and 2; No. 2 Celia Dyer (UVA) d. Alex Bodwitch (Vassar), 11-2, 5 and 6; No. 3 Sanam Khanna (Vassar) d. Alice Kister (UVA), 7 10-12 4-11 11-8 13-11; No. 4 Charlotte Seiler (UVA) d. Jill Levine (Vassar), 11-7 9-11 11-4 11-1; No. 5 Mary Shimkus (UVA) d. Avery Siciliano (Vassar), 11-7, 5 and 9; No. 6 Karina Primellus (Vassar) d. Lizzie Rajusingh (UVA), 11-3, 6 and 6; No. 7 Tara Simonson (UVA) d. Nancy Zheng (Vassar), 11-3 8-11 11-4 11-3; No. 8 Andrea Fehmy (Vassar) d. Annalisa Routh (UVA), 15-13 12-10 14-12; No. 9 Rachel Felderman (UVA) d. Davina Vaid (Vassar), 7-11 14-12 11-7 11-7.
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