Amity Girls Tennis Ends Season

Amity’s girls tennis team opened Class L state tournament play last week with a convincing 6-1 win over Ridgefield. The 4th ranked Lady Spartans claimed every match except No. 2 Doubles. Coach Harold Freedman pointed to No. 3 Doubles as a big win for his netters. Sophomores Jordi Herskowitz and Stephanie Foster downed Christy Marchand and Becca Brand 6-4, 6-3 and upped their record to 5-3.
According to Freedman, “We’d been searching for a third doubles team. It was nice to see Jordi and Stephanie come along so nicely toward the end of the season. Since they are both sophomores, they will be back next year.”
He noted that the remaining five matches were all straight set wins for his team.
“It was a very hot day and Ridgefield had to defeat South Windsor earlier in the day in order to advance and play us. By the time they got to us, I don’t think they had much left in the tank,” Freedman said. “We swept the four singles matches with five love sets. We held our form as the No. 4 seed and moved on to the quarter-finals against North Haven.”
Ridgefield (ranked 20th) ended its season with a 10-9 record.
The Lady Spartans had defeated North Haven 5-2 during the regular season. This time, the Indians managed to reverse the outcome of the No. 3 Singles contest, forcing Amity to struggle before pulling out a 4-3 quarter-finals win over the 5th-rated Indians.
Freedman said, “It was a very close match that wasn’t decided until the final set of the final game. North Haven was well prepared to face us.”
Without any question, the match of the day was No. 4 Singles where Lady Spartan freshman Claire Foster outlasted Erin Norden 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.  It took the Indians three sets to claim both No. 2 and No. 3 Doubles.
Amity wins came at No. 1 Singles (Jessica Seidman defeated Alyssa Migliorini 6-0, 6-1), No. 2 Singles (Dina Weick defeated Emily Carroll 6-2, 6-2), No. 1 Doubles (Alisha Roopchand and Bayla Weick defeated Melkissa Sardilli and Santina Marinelli 6-0, 6-0) and No. 4 Singles.
Amity’s veteran mentor added, “Winning the final match was a relief. It would have been very disappointing had we lost to North Haven in the state tournament after beating them 5-2 during the regular season. Coming into this match, our goal was to win and maintain our seed, which we were able to do.”
North Haven ended its season with a 16-4 record.
Advancing to the semi-finals, Amity was blanked 7-0 by New Canaan, which had been previously been the 4-time defending Class M champs.
Despite being blanked by the Rams (who went on to win the Class L championship) Freedman insisted the match was much closer  than the final score would indicate.
He said, “While on paper it looks like we got hammered, in reality there was    upside and a moral victory in it for us. New Canaan obviously a good team, but we played well. Nos 1, 2, and 4 Singles were all very competitive matches. It was a very windy day hen we played at New Canaan and I thought we gave our best shot against an undefeated (20-0) team.  Even though we lost, I didn’t feel all that bad. We had a terrific season and we competed very well. New Canaan had the top No.1 Doubles team in the state.  Even though Kim Glerum and Sara Greene defeated Alisha (Roopchand) and Bayla (Weick) 6-3, 6-3, after the match their coach told me that we had best doubles team they faced all season.”
Amity closed the book on the 2011 season with a glittering 19-3 record. Its losses were to New Canaan (the Class L champs), Hand (the Class M champs), and Glastonbury (the Class L  finalists that lost the championship match to New Canaan.) Seidman made it to the final 16 before losing to the  Lindsay Post of Danbury, in the individual state tournament championship tourney. Dina Weick advanced to the third round before being ousted by North Haven’s Migliorini.