Click here to subscribe today or Login.
By MARK FITZHENRY; Times Leader Sports Writer
Tuesday, October 13, 1998 Page: 1C
KINGSTON- Wyoming Seminary is well on its way to a fourth consecutive
division title in the Northeast Pennsylvania Tennis Conference.
Coach Ros Rudin isn’t celebrating.
Part of it is because she’s a “cautious optimist,” meaning she’ll wait
until her Blue Knights defeat Bishop Hafey today and winless Crestwood next
Monday before she talks about it.
And part of it likely is because she’s wrung out over Monday’s hard-fought
6-1 victory over rival Wyoming Valley West- a match closer than the final
score suggests.
Seminary could have easily lost all three of the doubles matches,
especially at Nos. 1 and 2. Valley West served for the point in No. 1 doubles,
and at No. 2 the Spartans lost a second-set tiebreaker that would have
clinched that point.
Instead, Seminary won both as it improved to 8-0. Valley West is 8-1 with
one match remaining.
“The (final) score does not indicate the match play,” Rudin said. “They
seesawed back and forth. We just didn’t have the consistency to keep it swayed
in our favor the whole time.”
During the past three years, Seminary has lost more than one point to an
opponent only once- this season, when Sem played its substitutes in doubles
and Coughlin swept those three matches.
Still, Rudin won’t talk about a division championship until the last match
is over. After District 2 singles play on Thursday and Friday, Seminary will
travel to Crestwood on Monday to close out the regular season. There are
doubles districts next week, followed by the state tournament Oct. 29-31 in
Hershey.
“The season’s just not over, and everybody who knows me knows I’m a very
cautious optimist,” Rudin said. “I’m still thinking about districts and I’m
still thinking about doubles, because there are glitches to work out.”
Unlike past years, there are no playoffs in the NEPTC. The division winners
are determined by regular-season play.
In Monday’s match, Seminary won three of the four singles matches as No. 1
Missy Sviatko and No. 2 Pilar Glodzik each won to maintain perfect records of
8-0. At No. 3, Valley West’s Megan Michael improved to 9-0.
In the lone battle of unbeatens, Seminary’s Lauren Fay (7-0) defeated Kim
Frank (8-1) in straight sets at No. 4 singles.
The top two doubles flights provided the afternoon’s top matches.
At No. 1, Michael and Juli Rubin served for the match at 5-4 in the third
set. However, Sviatko and Glodzik rallied to take the match 6-7 (6-8), 6-3,
7-5.
Frank and Kim Michelstein also were on the verge of winning at No. 2
doubles for Valley West, but Jen Blum and Kourtney Koslosky won a second-set
tiebreaker with the match at stake, then won the third set in a 5-7, 7-6
(7-3), 6-4 victory.
Long before those two matches finished, Rushmi Ramakrishna and Sarah Linde
clinched the match for Seminary with a straight-set victory at No. 3 doubles.
“It was a great match,” Valley West coach Jim Zimmerman said. “Overall, I’m
really proud of the way we played. We didn’t give up. We had a lot of tough
matches.”
Singles: 1. Missy Sviatko (Sem) d. Juli Rubin 6-0, 6-1; 2. Pilar Glodzik
(Sem) d. Jen Michelstein 6-3, 6-1; 3. Megan Michael (WVW) d. Kourtney Kosloski
6-3, 1-6, 6-0; 4. Lauren Fay (Sem) d. Kim Frank 6-2, 6-2.
Doubles: Sviatko/Glodzik (Sem) d. Rubin/Michael 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 7-5; 2. Jen
Blum/Koslosky (Sem) d. Michelstein/Frank 5-7, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4; 3. Rushmi
Ramakrishna/Sarah Linde (Sem) d. Amy Cohen/Amanda Sherlinski 6-4, 6-2.
Wyoming Seminary