CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Junior Meg Cokely (Haverhill, Mass.) was a double-winner to lead the Simmons College women's tennis team over host Suffolk University, 7-2, this evening in a Great Northeast Athletic Conference match played at Buckingham, Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge, Mass. The Sharks improve to 5-2 overall and a perfect 2-0 in league play, while the Rams fall to 0-4 and 0-1.
Cokely (6-1 singles, 2-4 doubles) did not drop a game in a 6-0, 6-0 win at second singles for Simmons over senior Adrianna Garrett (Plymouth, Mass.) and combined with classmate Caroline Khoury (Portsmouth, Ohio) (3-3 singles, 2-4 doubles) to defeat Garrett and sophomore Aidiana Sagyndykova (Almaty, Kazakhstan), 8-4, at number one doubles. Khoury was also flawless in singles action for the Sharks, blanking Jacqueline Nakamura, 6-0, 6-0 at fourth singles.
Junior Katie Crowley (Reading, Mass.) (4-2 singles, 5-2 doubles) was also a double-winner for Simmons with a dominant 6-0, 6-0 showing at fifth singles over Isabel Rathlev and paired with first year Han DK Le (Vietnam) (4-2 singles, 1-0 doubles) to earn an 8-1 decision over Nakamura and sophomore Abby Trigilio (Ipswich, Mass.) at number three doubles. Sophomore Tatiana Yugay (Westborough, Mass.) (1-0 singles, 1-1 doubles) earned her first collegiate singles win at number six over Suffolk's Trigilio, 6-4, 6-2. Junior Rachael Downey (Groveland, Mass.) (2-4 singles, 4-3 doubles) paired with sophomore Theresa Reinhard (Canton, Ohio) (2-5 singles, 4-3 doubles) to take second doubles for the Sharks over junior Rebecca Eshoo (Farmington, Conn.) and Rathlev, 8-1.
Eshoo and Sagyndykova earned both points for the Rams with singles wins. Sagyndykova won over Reinhard at number one, 6-1, 6-4, and Eshoo took down Downey in a hard fought match at number three, coming back from a 6-4 first set loss to win the next two, 7-5 and 13-11.
Simmons returns to the courts on Saturday, September 20 when it heads to Providence, R.I. to take on Johnson & Wales University at 1:00 p.m. in GNAC play, while Suffolk hosts Wentworth Institute of Technology on September 25 at 5:30 p.m.