ANDREW NOSTVICK SPORTS EDITOR
Jenny Dallenbach and Claire Evans won individual conference titles on Saturday at the Iowa Conference Women’s Tennis Individual Tournament in Cedar Rapids.
Dallenbach won the conference title in Flight B singles after defeating Cornell’s Alyssa Zavislak 6-3 and 6-0 in the finals. Dallenbach has had prior success against Zavislak.
“[Zavislak’s] a great player. She’s very strong and competitive. I just have to keep going and think positive, one play at a time,” Dallenbach said.
Dallenbach finished the season second on the team in wins with 13.
Head coach Matt Tyler said Dallenbach will continually get better.
“She’s such a great athlete,” Tyler said. “She understands the game of tennis very well. She knows what she has to do out there.”
In Flight C singles, Evans defeated teammate Brita Jensen in the finals 6-3 and 6-2.
“I think it’s given me a lot of motivation to keep playing, to work really hard in the offseason so I can do it again and maybe see more varsity matches next year,” Evans said.
Both girls said their goal was to reach the finals to face each other.
“She’s a good player, so I’m OK with losing to her,” Jensen said.
Tyler thought the match was a lot of fun.
“It’s nice to know we have that kind of depth on the team,” he said.
In Flight A, Molly Eslick, who faced some of the best to offer in the Iowa Conference, finished the tournament in third place after defeating Luther College’s Fran Fairfield in three sets.
“It was really tough. We had really long points and that made me even more tired, but we’ve been training really hard and that helped a lot,” Eslick said.
Eslick dropped the first set to her opponent 6-0. However, she found herself behind 5-4, with Fairfield serving for the match.
Eslick won three straight games to take the second, 7-5.
She won the tiebreaker to clinch third place.
Eslick didn’t find herself fighting from behind too often this season and even during the tournament.
Before her semifinal loss, Eslick hadn’t dropped a set in the tournament.
“It was definitely a challenge I haven’t had to do all year, but I’ve done it in the past, so it was a good match,” she said.