Netwomen Capture ITCA Team Title

The Harvard women's tennis team continued its winning ways this weekend with a very impressive win in the Region One Indoor Tennis Collegiate Association (ITCA) National Qualifier.

This team tournament, held at Princeton, qualifies the team for the National Indoor Championships in Madison, Wisconsin in early March.

"It was a great tournament," Harvard Coach Ed Krass said. "We have a great team and great chemistry. I think we will turn a lot of heads this year. We finally settled who the best was."

In the first round, the team played Dartmouth, a team that Harvard narrowly defeated 5-4 last spring. But this year, the netwomen did not lose a single match to the Big Green.

The Crimson swept the doubles and the singles for a surprising 9-0 win. All three of the doubles matches went three sets, but the Big Green managed to win only 19 games in six singles matches.

"I was a little surprised with the Dartmouth score," Krass said. "But I knew we had the type of team that could win, 9-0.

Co-Captain Kathy Mulvehal at number six singles and sophomore transfer Tanya Stasiuk at number one singles were especially devastating, losing only one game between them.

"We could have had a much easier first round match, but because we knew we were going to have a tough match, we came out really psyched and really up," said Jaime Henikoff.

"We killed them," Mulvehal said. "The whole team played great."

In the second round, the Crimson faced a much easier opponent in Yale. The netters crushed the Elis, 8-1, but sophomore Amy Delone lost. Delone avenged her loss in singles with a 6-0, 6-0 sweep at number two doubles with partner Christina Dragomirescu.

"I played well all weekend except for that match," Delone said. "I was just a little off, and she played well."

Also in the Yale match, Harvard Co-Captain Kristin Bland played in at number six singles as Mulvehal moved to number five, because Henikoff took the day off in singles to rest her back for the finals.

Despite these impressive wins, nothing was more satisfying than the victory over William and Mary in the finals. Harvard captured the match, 5-1, to prove once and for all that it is number-one.

"We really proved who is number one in the East," said a jubilant Dragomirescu.

"Last year William and Mary didn't think we deserved to go to the National Indoors because their number one player was hurt when we beat them," Bland said. "But this year, with the exact same line-up they had last year, we beat them, 5-1, and proved who's best."

Nevertheless, the Crimson certainly proved that it is a force to be reckoned with. Especially in doubles, as Bland and Henikoff, the region's pre-season number-four duo, defeated the pre-season's number-one team, 6-2, 6-0.

"We could do no wrong," Mulvehal said. "We came out focused, and we played seriously the whole time. We were all so hungry to win."

"It was an awesome effort," Dragomirescu said. "We have been working hard for this, and we deserved it." Volvo Women's Tennis pre-Season Rankings

Rank  Team  Points 1.  Stanford  150* 2.  Florida  144 3.  UCLA  132 4.  California  130 5.  USC  127 6.  Georgia  113 7.  Arizona State  112 8.  Kentucky  101 9.  Pepperdine  97 10.  Oklahoma State  90 11.  Duke  89 12.  Indiana  86 13.  Miami  85 14.  SMU  82

Rank  Team  Points 15.  Trinity  60 16.  BYU  49 17.  Arizona  45 18.  South Carolina  42 19.  Texas  41 20.  San Diego State  38 21.  Tennessee  29 22.  Texas A&M  28 23.  Clemson  27 24.  HARVARD  21 25t.  Mississipi State  19 25t.  TCU  19   *Stanford received 8 1st place votes