Published May 19, 2021
By RYAN MARSH
WAKEFIELD — This past Friday, the Wakefield Warriors’ girls’ tennis team played the Wilmington Wildcats at the Dobbins Courts. Coming off of a 4-1 victory against Wilmington days earlier, the Warriors were looking to repeat and tally another one in the win column to improve to 4-0 on the season.
Junior Annie King was the first singles for the Warriors. She had recently played her opponent, Lauren D’Arco, earlier in the week when she lost two sets to one. King started strong, giving D’Arco a run for her money. After rallying back and forth, D’Arco claimed the first set, 6-3. King began to up the pressure as she began to feel more comfortable. To no avail, King’s fight fell short as D’Arco won the second set 6-4, putting Wilmington one win closer to taking the match.
With a loss already for Wakefield, senior Erica Pecjo needed to bring the match back to even at second singles. The senior began her match slowly against Wilmington’s Vidhi Shah. Shah had learned Pecjo’s weaknesses from their prior meeting, and utilized them right off the bat, keeping Pecjo on her feet. After losing the first set 6-2, a sense of urgency was lit inside Pecjo. The senior clawed out of the deficit left from the first set and found herself leading the second set.
Pecjo won the second set mightly, defeating Shah 6-3. Now with the two deadlocked at one apiece, Pecjo needed to come up with another win to even up the match. Pecjo battled and ultimately defeated Shah the same way as in the second set: a 6-3 victory.
The third singles came with ease, as senior Hannah Guay continued her hot streak into the match. As the match was tied at one victory each team, Guay’s battle was of the utmost importance. Guay handled her opponent with ease, sweeping both sets 6-0, 6-0, putting Wakefield within one victory of an overall match victory.
One factor in the team’s success came with one simple line from head coach Kathy Healey: “The girls are having fun.”
With the Warriors now poised to take an overall victory in the match, the first doubles duo of juniors Panagiota Koutroubis and Haley Ogier were tasked with finding this necessary final win. Koutroubis and Ogier demonstrated qualities that showed the two were in sync with each play they made. The duo started tremendously strong, defeating the opposing duo in the first set 6-2.
Following their convincing first set win, their opposing duo began to battle back. As Koutroubis and Ogier clashed against their Wilmington opponents, balls were zooming across the court. Eventually, Koutroubis and Ogier finished off the second set with a victory, 6-4, and claimed the overall match for Wakefield.
With Koutroubis and Ogier’s victory in the first doubles match, junior Megan Cohen and sophomore Sydney Moon competed in the second doubles match. Cohen and Moon were able to play with confidence knowing Wakefield had already won the overall match, but the two did not need the extra confidence booster to win.
Cohen and Moon moved without resistance, taking control of the game. The two played strong and continued their hot streak from the match before and won 6-1 in both sets.
With Wakefield’s only loss coming in the first singles match, the team defeated Wilmington handily, 4-1.
“The goal is to play in the state tournament,” said coach Healey.
With the victory against Wilmington, Wakefield advanced their record to 4-0, adding to their undefeated streak and moving closer and closer to a tournament berth.
The Warriors’ undefeated run finally came to an end yesterday as they fell to Burlington 4-1. The Warriors and Red Devils will have a rematch on Friday at 4 p.m. this time in Wakefield.
