Matthew Olson – Staff Writer

The Gustavus women’s tennis team hosted the 2022 ITA Division III Midwest Regional Championship this past weekend. Many Gusties made deep runs in their respective quarters, showing promise for the season soon to come. With multiple players making it to the round of 16 in the singles draw and three partnerships making the quarterfinals of the doubles draw, the team overall met the standard that the highly successful program has set for itself.

First-year Allison Szalay was the star of the tournament for the Gusties. Seeded fourth in the region, Szalay got off to a quick start with a two set win against Cheyanne Phillips of Concordia, WI, in which Szalay shut out Philips with a final score of 6-0 in both sets. 

“I was pretty nervous. I went in as the four seed and I wasn’t expecting that as a first-year so I felt like I kind of needed to live up to that, plus I just get pretty stressed over matches in general. But I was also really excited because ever since getting here everyone on the team has been so supportive. I just knew it was gonna be a great weekend and really fun no matter how it went,” Szalay said.

Moving swiftly from that performance, Szalay recorded two more sweeping victories with 6-2 and 6-1 sets against UW-Whitewater’s Faith Nosek and Nosek’s fellow UW Warhawk Kasey Schlicht, falling in sets of 6-0 and 6-4 in Szalay’s favor.

The quarterfinals against 14th seeded Clare Palen of UW-Eau Claire was the first round Szalay saw her opponent take a set, slightly slipping in a 3-6 loss. However, Szalay quickly bounced back to take the win, tallying 6-3 and 6-0 victories in the subsequent sets. 

Szalay finally fell in the semifinals, but she did not go down without a fight. The second-seeded Kelsey Dorr of St. Kate’s took the first set 6-2 while Szalay took the second with a 1-6 win. With a 6-2 repeat of the first set, Szalay was unable to avenge the loss of fellow Gustie First-year Molly Austin, who fell to Dorr in the round of 16. Dorr moved on to become the runner-up of the singles draw, losing in the championship to Grinnell’s first-seeded Sabrina Tang.

Junior Alli Laux also had an extensive run in the singles draw, starting out with 6-4 and 6-1 sets against Bethel’s Rylee Schurmann. Laux then outperformed Renata Martinez of Luther in sets of 6-0 and 6-2. 

“It’s been different as an upperclassman to sort of step up in a leadership role but it’s also been a lot of fun. We also have a really strong team culture and bond so it’s fun to get the first-years involved with what the team culture is like. I’m really not worried about the personality and the work ethic that the underclassmen will bring. The team’s just full of a great group of girls,” Laux said.

Meeting Grinnell’s Mira Manchanda proved to give Laux a slight challenge. The first set reached a 5-all tie, finally ending 7-5. The second set saw a retirement of the match by Manchanda, saving Laux from perhaps another tough set and allowing straight advancement to defeat Xingchen Liu of Carthage in sets of 6-4 and 6-2.

Laux finally met her match in the quarterfinals against third seed Autumn Bruno of UW-Whitewater, falling in two sets of 6-3. Bruno also defeated Gustie Senior Yuki Oda in two sets in the round just prior to the contest with Laux.

First-year Kaya De Brujin had a couple wins as well, defeating UW-Eau Claire’s Sydney Pressley in two 6-4 sets and Lily Pernin of Grinnel in 6-3 and 6-1 sets. De Brujin then fell in the round of 16 to sixth seed Cassie Lee of UW-Whitewater.

The doubles draw also proved bountiful for the Gusties, with doubles partners Laux and De Brujin as well as Oda and Austin reaching the quarterfinals in the draw. Szalay and recently-fitted partner Sophomore Halle Rosentreter also made the quarterfinals.

“It was kind of crazy. Being the only lefty on the team, our coach just matched me with a bunch of people during pre-season to see who would benefit the most from playing with a lefty. I ended up practicing with tons of my teammates so when he put me with Allison, I don’t know what happened but something just clicked right away. We played super well together right from the beginning,” Rosentreter said.

With such a promising tournament run, the Gusties will continue to work and practice hard for the upcoming season in the spring.