Luke Siegle – Staff Writer

The Gustavus Women’s Tennis team returned from their spring break trip in Texas and locked up two wins this past Saturday against Mankato State University and Southwest Minnesota State University. With an impressive 5-2 win over Mankato and then a dominant 7-0 win against SMSU they got back on track heading into conference play which starts in a couple weeks. “On our spring break trip we played really really good teams and I think that set us up for some really good wins this past weekend against two good D2 teams,” Senior Sydney Douglas said.
The Gusties got going early against Mankato as they won two out of three doubles matches to secure the point for doubles. Senior Anna Stutz and Douglas won their match 7-5 and Junior Lili Elofson and First-year Brooke Haddorff rolled with a 6-4 win as well. “We didn’t want to lose anymore, we just wanted to win,” Stutz said. They kept it rolling by winning four of six singles matches. Stutz, the number two singles player, led the way with a 6-3, 7-6 (5-0) win and the Gusties forth, fifth, and sixth singles players all followed suit, securing dominant wins to give them the 5-2 win.
“A huge factor that contributed to our win was definitely the team atmosphere throughout spring break and now coming back to Gustavus. We cheered for each other which helped us set ourselves apart from the competition and by cheering for each other we pushed each other to do our best,” Stutz said.
The strong team atmosphere certainly did it’s part on Saturday as it led them to a big win against one of their main rivals in Mankato. “There’s been a lot of hype around the MSU match just because they’re so close and it was fun to finally play them and they were a really solid team this year and I think that by our win it shows that we have been putting in more effort and cultivating a winning mindset,” Douglas said after the match.
With the win against Mankato it set the stage for the Gusties second match of the day against SMSU. The team overwhelmed SMSU and secured a 7-0 win. Kicking it off were the doubles matches which featured the combination of Senior Simona Potockova and Junior Yuki Oda who defeated SMSU’s top doubles team by a score of 7-5.
“My partner, Yuki Oda, was able to step up big time and she was able to absolutely bomb everything at the net which was great,” Potockova said. Douglas and Stutz continued the momentum with an easy 6-1 win in their doubles match and Elofson and Haddorff finished it off with a 6-2 victory in the third doubles match. That earned the Gusties the one point advantage heading into singles. Potockova once again led the Gusties as she took down her opponent with a 6-0, 6-1 win.
“Going into my last singles match of the week, I was pretty exhausted but I knew it was the last one so I just wanted to leave everything out there on the court,” Potockova said. She did that with her overwhelming victory and the rest of the team followed. Stutz secured a 6-2, 6-1 victory followed by Oda who won 6-2, 6-3. Douglas continued her groove with a 7-5, 6-2 victory. Sophomore Alli Laux defeated her opponent in dominant fashion with a 6-0, 6-1 victory. Lastly, Senior Rachel Lindrud won 2-6, 6-1, 13-11 in a thriller to cap the singles sweep. The six points in singles along with the point for the doubles wins capped a successful day for the Gusties.
With the two big wins, the team’s motivation is high headed into conference play. “Our biggest goal is to beat Bethel and then Carleton. Those are going to be our top two competitions,” Stutz said. In addition to the on court performance the team also wants to continue to grow in their culture.
“One of the main points our coach makes is you play to inspire. So when you are playing hard someone is always watching you. When they see that, they want to put the same effort in,” Potockova said. The Gusties will look to continue to grow on and off the court as they prepare for the start of their conference season which gets going on April 9 against Macalester and St. Scholastica.