May 9, 2008
Youth carries Sacred Heart Tigers tennis
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The belief that sometimes youth must be served has certainly been displayed by this year’s tennis team at Convent of the Sacred Heart.
The Tigers have enjoyed a successful season so far, taking a 5-2 record into Tuesday’s match against Greens Farms Academy, including a 4-1 mark in the FAA.
In fact, CSH won its first five matches of the season by scores of 5-0, 6-0, 5-0 and back-to-back 5-1 victories.
And they’ve been doing it with youth, carrying as many as eight sophomores on their roster, while a seventh grader and a freshman occupy the top two singles spots in the lineup.
“We’re very young, but we’re very talented,” said first-year head coach Anne Fraser, who coached the CSH junior varsity last season. “We have wonderful potential.”
Perhaps nowhere is that potential more evident than at No. 1 singles, where seventh grader Michelle Urbinati has looked impressive.
“She’s lost only three matches and all of them have been close,” Fraser pointed out.
Meanwhile, freshman Kathleen Spillane has been playing No. 2 singles, giving the Tigers a solid one-two punch at the top of their lineup.
“Our No. 1 and No. 2 are very close,” Fraser noted. “They both play USTA tournaments.”
Spillane has lost only two matches, against St. Luke’s and Taft, the only two teams to beat CSH so far this season. Unbeaten St. Luke’s wrapped up the FAA crown earlier this week, while the loss to Taft was a non-league match.
Both Urbinati and Spillane have been able to hone their skills this spring playing against Fraser’s daughter, Emily Fraser, who graduated from Rye High School a year ago and was a top-30 nationally ranked junior player.
She took a year off from school to play professionally — already attaining a world rank ing — and decided to assist her mother at CSH in between matches before enrolling at the University of Virginia in the fall.
“It’s been wonderful to have her home and have her help out. I love it,” Anne Fraser, who was captain of the first two women’s tennis teams at Dartmouth College, in 1973 and 1974, said. “She’s such a big help, particularly because she can hit with Michelle and Kathleen. She does some drills with them, which frees me up to work with the others.”
A pair of sophomores, Maggie McLaughlin and Alex McNulty, have been alternating between playing No. 3 singles and No. 1 doubles, where they team up with another sophomore, Katie Randolph.
“Generally she plays No. 1 doubles,” Fraser said of Randolph. “But if we play a match with four singles and three doubles, she plays four singles.”
The No. 2 doubles team is also solid, with Takako Hrokawa, one of only three seniors on the squad, pairing up with freshman Courtney Fischer.
The other two seniors are co-captains Emily Bruno and Gabby Prescod, both doubles players.
Sophomores Carolina Hernandez and Hayley Purse “have both done well at three doubles when we have exhibitions,” Fraser reported, while Lizzy Renck, another 10th grader, and Erin O’Callaghan, the only junior on the team, provide depth in singles.
“We have a lot of depth in singles,” the Sacred Heart coach said. “We have 15 girls on the team, which is a lot. But there were so many talented players that I didn’t want to drop any of them.”
Two more talented sophomores on the squad are Olivia Tranfo and Christine Cahaney, who was first sidelined with mono, then returned but pulled her thigh muscle.
“So she’s not able to play much,” Fraser said. “But she did win one of the matches she played in doubles.”
While St. Luke’s clinched first place, Sacred Heart still has a shot at finishing second if it beats GFA on Tuesday and can knock off defending champion Greenwich Academy on Monday.
Then a week from Monday, Urbinati and Spillane will join the top two singles players from each team at the FAA individual championship, while the No. 1 doubles teams in the league go at it the following day. Both tournaments will be at CSH.
“I’m really pleased with our season so far,” Fraser said. “I thought even our only league loss to St. Luke’s (4-1 last Wednesday) was a close match and I thought we had a chance at the end.
“We should be even better in years to come as some players grow more and get more experience behind them. This has been a real good team to work with and I’m really excited about the future. We have so much potential.”
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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