The women battled the Marist College Red Foxes at home, keeping their red-hot winning streak going, dominating the match up 5-2, and improving their already-impressive record to 5-0.

The matches to secure the doubles point were played first, and the Raiders fought hard. The top spot was filled by duo junior Alex Petrini and first-year Lexi Lazares. The girls experienced a close match, winning narrowly 9-8. Meanwhile, junior Kelsey Shea and partner senior Merideth Rock slammed their competition in an easy 8-0 defeat. These back-to-back wins succeeded in earning the Raiders the doubles point.

“Getting the doubles point was huge,” head coach Bobby Pennington said.

Singles play was competitive for the Raiders this week; three of the matches even went to a third set. Petrini played in one of these matches, as after easily winning the first set 6-0, she faltered in the second, losing 4-6, and again in the third, unfortunately losing 1-6. But this early defeat did nothing to hinder the

teams’ confidence.

Sophomore Kelsey Wanhainen’s match went to three sets as well, but her outcome was more favorable. After losing the first set 2-6, and winning the second set 7-5 she was able to pull out a solid win with a 6-4

victory over her Marist opponent in the third set.

“[She] clinched the victory with her third straight set victory.” Pennington said

of Wanhainen.

Rock, too, encountered a three-set match. She also dropped her first set 4-6, but came back in the following two sets, unwilling to accept defeat and tarnish her own personal 4-0 record. She won the following two sets 6-2, 6-1, and elevated her record to 5-0.

Shea was again triumphant in her singles match, stomping on the competition and winning easily 6-1, 6-1 and even more impressively, in the top spot. First year Jennifer Ho also conquered her opponent in straight sets, winning the first set narrowly, 7-5 and the second set with a solid 6-3.

Unfortunately, Lazares was overcome by the Marist competition, and relinquished her fifth spot match 4-6, 3-6.

“We are off to one of our best starts in school history. This is the third team we have beaten this year that we lost to a season ago. The improvement in attitude, depth and culture is staggering,” Pennington said.

The women will face off again on their home soil, this Saturday, February 23 at 10:00 a.m. against the Merrimack College Ultimate Warriors. The men, too, will play the Merrimack Warriors on Saturday, at 2:00 p.m..

Contact Liza Sawyer at

[email protected].