BEVERLY, Mass.- With the NCAA DIII Women's Tennis Tournament slated to start on May 8th, Endicott played host to Simmons for their final spring match on Friday with the Gulls falling to the hosts by a 6-3 final. With the setback, Endicott falls to 13-4 on the campaign while Simmons improves to 16-3. Both squads have qualified for NCAA Tournament play which begins on May 8th at a time and site that has yet to be determined.
The Gulls held a 2-1 advantage after doubles play following wins from their #2 and #3 pairings. Jamie Zompa (Marlborough, Mass.) and Brittany Potter (Bedford, N.H.) claimed an 8-5 victory at #3 doubles over Katie Crowley (Reading, Mass.) and Han DK Le (Tra Vinh, Vietnam) to stake Endicott to a 1-0 lead to start before Meg Cokely (Haverhill, Mass.) and Theresa Reinhard (Canton, Ohio) evened the score at 1-1 by downing Amy Heacox (Marion, Mass.) and Natalie Egbert (Gorham, Maine) at #1 doubles. Mackenzie Rhodes (Rye, N.H.) and Maxine Bergstein (Hingham, Mass.) would claim a dramatic 9-8 (7-5) win at #2 over Simmons' Caroline Khoury (Portsmouth, Ohio) and Rachael Downey (Groveland, Mass.) to give the Gulls the 2-1 lead heading into singles play.
The visitors would take five of six singles matches from that point on to depart with a 6-3 win. Potter's 6-3, 6-4 win at #4 singles over Khoury would be the lone singles victory for the Gulls on the day.
#1 singles between Heacox and Reinhard was the longest battle of the day as Reinhard claimed the first set 6-4 before Heacox took the second 6-7 (9-11) in an impressive tiebreaker to force a third set in which Reinhard would come out victorious by a score of 6-1.
Cokely was able to claim a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Egbert at #2 singles while Downey and Rhodes needed three sets to settle their contest at #3. Rhodes would take the first set 5-7 before Downey struck back, taking the second and third by scores of 6-3 and 6-1.
Crowley and Le would claim #5 and #6 singles over Zompa and Bergstein by scores of 6-3, 6-2 and 6-2, 6-2, respectively to close out the match for the Sharks. This was the final match of the season before NCAA Tournament play for Endicott while Simmons has one remaining match at MIT this Saturday.
