The Fairfield women’s tennis team has been very successful thus far this season, with a 3-0 record in the MAAC. The team has benefited from the superior performance of many players, including a key victory from Taylor Barvoets ’07.
Barvoets came through to win the last match to lead her team to a 4-3 victory over Loyola.
This marked the first win for Fairfield over Loyola since the fall of 1997.
“I was excited that my match was the deciding match and as a freshman I could have such an impact on the team,” Barvoets said.
Thus far in the season, Barvoets is 12-6 in singles play and has been recently paired up with team captain Diana Webb ’05 for first doubles. The pair is 4-2.
“Taylor is certainly the biggest single difference from last year to this year,” said Jeffrey Wyshner, men’s and women’s tennis coach.
“Having her come play number two singles for us has changed the way our lineup has been able to compete,” he said.
With the team’s 6-1 win over Manhattan on Tuesday, its fourth win in as many days, they advanced to 12-3 overall and 3-0 in the MAAC.
“I have a very positive outlook on the rest of the season,” said Barvoets. “I think we should do really well and we’re going into the MAAC championships very positive.”
Wyshner agreed with Barvoets’ hopes for the rest of the season.
“One of our goals is to win the conference championships,” said Wyshner. “We have very important matches against Siena and Marist coming up in which we hope to do well.”
Reflecting on the past weekend, Wyshner was positive about the Loyola win.
“The biggest thing is it was a big team win on Saturday,” he said. “Loyola is the biggest rivalry we have as a team.”
In addition to Barvoets’ win, she and Webb also won first doubles 8-5. Other team wins included Erin Reeves ’04 and Andrea Suriano ’04 in second doubles, and Webb and Suriano in singles.
The women swept Rider in a 7-0 win on Sunday afternoon. Doubles teams of Barvoets/Webb and Annie Mullowney ’04 and Megan Stauffer ’06 both won their matches. Reeves and Suriano had an 8-0 sweep at second doubles.
Winning continued on the singles’ side with Webb, Barvoets, Reeves and Stauffer all winning their matches, along with Michelle Geller ’07.
In their hard fought 4-3 victory over Fordham on Monday, the women advanced to their third win in a row.
This was the team’s first win over Fordham since spring 1998.
Webb and Barvoets started off the match with a 9-4 win at first doubles. A win by Stauffer and Mullowney at third doubles gave the Stags the doubles point.
In singles, Suriano won a tight match a third singles. Reeves and Stauffer also won their singles matches to clinch the win for the Stags.
On Tuesday the women advanced to only one win away from tying the school record for wins at 13 with a 6-1 win over Manhattan.
With wins by Suriano/Reeves and Stauffer/Mullowney the team took the doubles point. Webb, Barvoets, Suriano, Reeves and Stauffer all took their singles matches. Christina Chacharone 06 also pulled out a win in her sixth singles match.
Following the four day winning streak the women will have a few days off to prepare for their trip to face Niagra for a key MAAC match.
“We still have to play a couple more schools from bigger conferences,” said Wyshner. “We want to beat URI in the Mid-Atlantic and Providence in the Big East. We also have very important matches against Siena and Marist coming up in which we hope to do well.”
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