Simpson tennis finds wins on warm weekend

by Brett Crable

The Simpson men’s and women’s tennis teams were both in action this past weekend as they looked to start gaining some momentum as the conference tournament approaches.

The Simpson women’s team racked up their first win of the spring season as they defeated Northwestern 7-2.

After a tough Spring Break trip the Storm look to get back on track with the season quickly winding down for the year.

One of the young stars of the team, Kelli Ehrhardt, believes that the match against Northwestern was going to be very similar on a competitive side so the team knew what to expect.

“I think the team performed very well because we knew Northwestern would be about like us on a competitive level, so we were all prepared to play hard and get the win,” Ehrhardt said.

Ehrhardt who has been outstanding all year in her first season with the Storm is still just looking to keep getting experience under her belt so she can be just as successful, as well as the team, the rest of her career at Simpson.

“I want to get more experience under my belt to be ready for the next coming years because the team will be losing a lot of great seniors. As for the team, I would like to see us keep improving and getting more wins,” Ehrhardt said.

Another star for the team is senior Lindsay Nash, who has been a member of the team for all four years and looks to finish the year on a strong note.

“We are looking to finish out the year with all victories. We will be playing one of our biggest rivalries in Central, so we are looking to come out 9-0 in that match,” Nash said.

Despite the season winding down, the Storm are still wanting to prove themselves to the rest of their opponents by finishing the year strong.

The women’s tennis team will match up against Graceland Friday, April 12 at 3:30 p.m.

On another note, the Simpson men’s tennis team happened to split their matches from this past weekend.

The men started out well as they handled Dubuque 5-4, but unfortunately came up just short in the match against Loras losing 5-4.

Senior Blake Billings knew that the team would have to play well against these teams, but that they were winnable matches.

“We knew going into the weekend that we were going to have great opportunities to win both matches, but we were going to have to come out firing. Against Dubuque we used some strong singles play to take the match, and against Loras we had our shots and just fell a little short,” Billings said.

While their season is coming to a close shortly too, sophomore Jeff Armstrong believes that there is still more to achieve.

“We are looking to accomplish a couple more conference wins which are always tough, but with practice and dedication anything can happen,” Armstrong said.

The men’s team is very young still and looks to be quite promising in the near future under the newer coach T.J. Cox so one of the main things is for the team to just continue getting better each day.

The men’s team will match up against Luther and Wartburg Saturday, April 13 starting at 9:30a.m.