(Portions of this story were taken from the DePauw
University and Trinity University websites)
CLAREMONT, Calif. - DePauw's top doubles team of
Janelle Arita and Kelly Gebert bowed out of the NCAA Division III
Women's Tennis Championships with a quarterfinal loss.
The Tigers' tandem dropped a 6-3, 6-2 decision to Amherst's
fourth-seeded dup of Jordan Brewer and Gabby Devlin. Arita and
Gebert finished the 2010-11 season with a 29-9 doubles record and,
by advancing to the quarterfinals, earned all-America honors.
In singles play, Arita dropped a three-set match to Rochester's Lia
Weiner. Arita won the opening set 6-3 and led in the second before
losing 7-5. Weiner won the third and deciding set by a 6-0
score.
Also in singles play, Trinity University sophomore Thavindra
Ekanayake gave it a good run, but lost Friday in the opening round
of the NCAA Division III Women's Tennis Championships Singles
Tournament.
Melissa Oosterhouse of Calvin beat Ekanayake 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of the 32-player tournament at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges. Both players were unseeded heading into the weekend's action.
Ekanayake, playing in her first NCAA event, served for the first set at 5-4, when Oosterhouse broke her service, tying the score at 5-5. Oosterhouse then held serve, and broke Ekanayake again to advance to the second round.
In the fall of 2009, Ekanayake captured the Intercollegiate
Tennis Association Regional singles title, and earned All-America
honors.
The SCAC's third entry in the women's singles competition,
first-year player Kate Stanford of Sewanee-The University of the
South, was defeated 6-2, 6-2 by Kristin Alotta of Williams College
on Friday. Alotta was ranked second in the Northeast Region.
Sewanee's duo of Stanford and Jenny Liles, a sophomore from Little
Rock, Ark., faced off against Shelci Bowman and Julia Browne
of Tufts on Friday in the doubles competition. Stanford and Liles
took the first set 6-3, but the third-ranked Jumbo pair
rallied to win the match with 6-1 and 6-2 victories in sets two and
three.