The MX Girls Varsity tennis team started the opening of the ISL season with a great win of 10-5 against St. Marks at our home indoor courts.
 
Throughout the match, the weather constantly shifted from wind to rain to hail, but the MX team stayed focused and determined to play every point. Our two captains, who play 1 & 2, respectively, had epic battles. Marissa Fadley, duked it out with her opponent in a very close two set match of 7-6, 7-5, never giving up and having to fight back from being down in the first set as well as also being down 1-4 in the tiebreaker; she eventually wore her opponent down and never gave up. We talk a lot about digging deep and finding that mental toughness when you need it most, and this fight was a great example of this.
 
Another notable match was Sophia Schubnel's match. Her opponent started off strong, seeing opportunities to work the point and capitalize on short balls, but Sophia never gave up and took the second set to regroup and stay focused, keeping her backhand deep and finding opportunities to work her way into the net to put away volleys and a few overheads. Sophia came back from 1-6 to win the second set 6-2. What a match!
 
After the singles concluded, we had already won the match, but again we got to see some impressive doubles. Marissa and Neha Kommenini used different formations, and many poach opportunities to dominate at the net and let their opponents become frustrated with missed groundstrokes at the baseline. They used their serve to stay aggressive right from the beginning of each point.
 
Newcomer, Sadie Schuler and veteran, Megan Shi looked for opportunities to put away their volleys at net, while actively communicating their position on the court to one another. Their opponents were pushed to the back court letting Sadie and Megan dominate at the net - an impressive win of 8-2, they didn't let St. Marks in and kept their focus.
 
Overall, a great start to the season.