SHS Girls Tennis Team Fights Hard Against Horace Greeley

Fallon Krane, Alexa Gallante, Sophie Landa, Jalyn Ryu, Maya Kossakowski, Kay Cottrell, and Sophia WuIt had to end sometime. And it did on Tuesday September 17, 2024 when the Scarsdale Girl’s Varsity A Tennis Team broke their 82 match winning streak. That’s right. The team had been undefeated since 2018, not dropping a single match in six years and winning the NYS title for the past two years.Gianna Marks

Sadly, the young team was not able to prevail over Horace Greeley at home, losing the match 2-5. Why? It turns out that three top returning players decided not to play on the team this year, on the advice of private coaches who persuaded them to pursue tournament play in order to improve their chances to be recruited for college.

So, Coach Jennifer Roane, who has piloted this highly successful program for years, found herself down three essential team members when her top two singles players, Charlene Dong and Katie Kendall and first doubles player Emma Ha failed to sign up for the season. To make matters worse, returning player Carly Alin is injured.

Though many talented players were moved from doubles to singles, and from the Varsity B team to the Varsity A team, it was tough to recover from this blow.

On Tuesday, they went into the match with a 5-0 record, defeating Rye, John Jay, Harrison, Mamaroneck and Bethlehem – in a scrimmage match. But they knew that Chappaqua, a top team in the league, would be hard to conquer.

Sophia Wu and Jalyn RyuThe team fought hard. Matches were lengthy and the second singles match, played by Isabel Lin went to a tiebreaker. It was close to 6 pm and getting dark before everyone left the court.

There were some bright spots. Returning player Gianna Marks, who played third singles last year, is now playing first singles. She hit deep shots and fierce overheads to win that match 6-3, 6-3.

And in second singles, after long and powerful exchanges from the baseline, Isable Lin won the first set 6-3, dropped the second 4-6, but triumphed with a score of 11-9 in the tiebreaker.

But for third singles player, and former doubles champ Kay Cottrell the match was a disappointment, falling 2-6, 1-6 to her opponent. The same score was reported on the first doubles court where returning players Jalyn Ryu and Sophia Wu, two who are not used to losing, did not prevail.

Also fighting it out in second doubles were juniors Sophie Landa and Maya Kossakowski who ran their opponents around but failed to take it to the finish line, with a score of 2-6, 3-6.Jalyn Ryu and Kay Cottrell

Playing third doubles were seniors Phoebe Flaster and Emily Hyman and in fourth, were juniors Fallon Krane and Alex Gallante who said they could use more experience playing together.

The girls will have a chance to come back with they play Chappaqua again in two weeks. Coach Roane remained upbeat, saying, “The girls gave 100 percent at the match. The loss has motivated to beat them when we see them in 2 weeks.”

Sophie Landa and Maya Kossakowski