Netwomen Finish Third in New England Regionals

The "biggest tournament of the year," the New England Women's Intercollegiate Tennis Championships, was held at Amherst this week and the Harvard team brought home the bronze, finishing only a point behind runner-up Trinity.

Dartmouth led the field of 46 teams with 22 points. Tufts followed with 19, while the Crimson garnered 18. Yale, which left its top four singles players in New Haven, tied with Tufts for fourth, scoring 17 victory points.

Meg Meyers, competing in the top half of the singles draw, lost her first round match to third seeded Wendy Jennings of Trinity, 6-1, 6-1 and qualified for the consolation tournament. Meyers proceeded to outclass her opponents in this division and netted the women in white 2 1/2 extra points in the process.

Defeating competitors from Bowdoin (10-1), Springfield (by default), Wellesley (double breadsticks), and Mt. Holyoke (2 and 5), she made her way into the consolation finals. Playing what Coach Felske described as "beautiful, calculated tennis" against Brown's number one singles player Mara Rogers, Meyer grabbed four straight games to break open the match and claim the title, 6-2, 6-1.

Libby Pierpont, also playing singles, bested Sue Rand of the University of Rhode Island 6-3, 6-3, and Grace MacDonald of Bates, 2 and love, before falling in the third round. Battling on day for the first time all year, Pierpont lost to a woman she had previously defeated in the Greater Boston Championships, Tufts' Wendy Shahon, 4-6, 1-6.

Starting off slowly, the first seeded doubles team of Martha and Sally Roberts dropped the opening set of their opening match before starting their march to the finals. Recovering to beat the Boston University team of Erwin and Johnson, 5-7, 6-3, 6-1, the Roberts also ousted teams from Wheaton (0 and 2), MIT (6-1, 6-1), and UMass (6-2, 6-4).

In the semifinals they registered a 4 and 2 triumph over Barbara Fisher and Vivi (she's from Colorado) Dinkley from Trinity. The superlative groundstrokes of two cogs of the green machine, Jody Awad and Thayer Wendell, overcame the Roberts' superior net game, as the Crimson lost 6-4, 6-4 in the finale.

The number two doubles team for Harvard, Terry Clarke and Leslie Miller eased by Dorothy Steele and Brittain Mauk of Hampshire 3 and 4, and Phelan and Thielking of UConn 6-1, 6-3. Behind the awesome tennis of Clarke, she and Miller outlasted the UMass team of Jurie and Sullivan 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, before coming up a few shots short against Martha Morehead and Maura Nolan of Boston College, 5-7, 4-6 in the fourth round.

In three consecutive weekends, Felske's team has proven themselves the best team in Boston, the Mass state champs, and one of the major powers in New England. This week they hope to conclude the fall season with their undefeated record intact. Traveling to Durham on Tuesday to face the University of New Hampshire, they finish up against BC here at Soldiers Field Thursday at 3:30.