Tennis aiming to stay healthy ahead of tournament
On April 2, the Georgia College men’s and women’s tennis teams picked up PBC victories at home over Georgia Southwestern, with both teams winning 8-1.
In the men’s doubles against Georgia Southwestern, the No. 1 Bobcat doubles team junior Jerome Leborgne and sophomore Johan Wadstein defeated their opponents in the eight-game pro-set 8-2.
Manoj Kuninci | gcsunade.comSophomore Johan Wadstein in action earlier this season for Georgia College. Wadstein won his April 2 singles match against Georgia Southwestern, 6-1, 6-1.
Claiming the No. 3 doubles victory juniors Robert Angelucci and Tobias Rausch, whose match went into a tie-breaking set, took a 9-8 win.
In men’s singles, No. 1 seed Leborgne claimed the first singles victory of the match for the Bobcats when he defeated his Georgia Southwestern opponent 6-3, 6-2.
Wadstein was the No. 2 singles player for the Bobcats and earned another Bobcat victory when he beat his opponent 6-1 in both sets.
Playing at the No. 3 singles spot was Rausch, who defeated his opponent in his first set 6-2.
In the second set, his Hurricane opponent came back and defeated Rausch 6-2 and the match was sent into a third set to determine a winner. In the extended third set, Rausch came back strong and took the set win with a 10-6 score and claimed the overall match victory.
In the No. 4 singles seed, Bernardes defeated his opponent 6-2 in the first set, but lost the second set 4-6.
In the third set tie-breaker, Bernardes fought hard and claimed an 11-9 victory for the third set to take the match win.
Coming in strong at No. 6 singles was sophomore Wictor Andersson, who defeated his opponent 7-5 in both sets.
“We played good. We played some good doubles. They were better than last year and we stepped up and played really consistent,” Wadstein said. “We showed them that we were better than them.”
In the women’s 8-1 victory against Georgia Southwestern, the No. 1 Bobcat doubles team of sophomore Kayla Barksdale and senior Bertille Lion defeated their opponents 8-1.
In No. 2 doubles, sophomores May Johnson and Michelle Lingner also took an 8-1 victory.
Finishing out the doubles was the freshmen pair of Lisa Setyon and Kelly Edwards, who won a shutout victory against the Georgia Southwestern pair, 8-0.
In No. 1 singles, Johnson got the Bobcats singles going when she took a 6-3 win in the first set and a 6-2 win the second set.
Keeping the energy flowing was No. 2 seed Barksdale, who won her first set 6-1 and shut out her opponent in the second set, 6-0.
For No. 3 singles, Lochner took a 6-1 victory in the first set and a 6-2 win in the second set.
Setyon played in the No. 4 singles spot and shut out her opponent in the first set 6-0 and 6-1 in the second set. In the No. 4 spot, Lingner managed to shut out her opponent 6-0 in the first set and won her second set 6-1.
“It was a good win. They were a solid team and we pretty much all won,” Johnson said. “Our greatest strength was our focus and our intensity. We were out there to win. We were the team to beat and we won.”
On April 3, both Georgia College tennis teams were on the road to Columbus State, where both teams suffered 9-0 shutout defeats against the Cougars, whose men’s team was ranked No. 13 and women’s teams was ranked No. 8.
“We’ve got a pretty new team this year and we’re still young and we’ve got to work hard to step up in the big games,” Wadstein said. “It’s not that we’re not as good as them, it’s just that we needed to fire up a little more and not go for the stupid shots. It was a big defeat but I think we can beat them next time.”
On April 4 the women fell 7-2 on the road at No. 13 Clayton State. The two Bobcat wins against the Lakers both came from the singles competition when Barksdale defeated her opponent 6-4, 2-6, 10-6 in the No. 2 slot and Setyon’s No. 4 slot win 6-1, 2-6, 10-5.
On April 7, both of the Georgia College tennis teams were on the road to travel to South Carolina to face Anderson University. The match had not been played at press time.
“Right now, the way it’s been going we need to work on our health. We’ve had a couple people sick and playing hurt so we’re trying to sort of get to the conference tournament being the healthiest we can be,” Head Coach Steve Barsby said. “We’ve got a couple of guys rebounding from health issues and they’re coming around so hopefully we’ll be at full go in getting ready for the tournament.”
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