NP Hawks Defeat Oneonta for the Number One Seed

By Payton Ellison

NEW PALTZ — The State University of New York at New Paltz women’s tennis team celebrated its Senior Day with a 6-3 win against SUNY Oneonta on Saturday.

It was the final regular-season match of the 2022 season for SUNY New Paltz (11-4 overall, 6-0 SUNYAC). It ended an eight-match winning streak for the Red Dragons (15-6 overall, 6-0 SUNYAC) while the Hawks extended their own streak to eight.

The program honored seniors Trinity Chow, Alexandra Dratch and Alex Chimenti on the New Paltz Tennis Courts after the match.

The Hawks played three hard-fought doubles matches to begin the afternoon. Chow and sophomore Tatiana Barnett defeated the Red Dragon’s Madeline Carswell and Maxie Karen in first doubles 8-4, while Dratch and junior Onalee Batcheler won a tough 8-6 match against Olivia Fraser and Rebecca MacDonald in second doubles. Freshman Isabel van der Veen and sophomore Loretta Donovan kept their third doubles match close throughout, but Sophia Schutte and Julia Holtermann prevailed to win the match, 8-6.

Singles play featured six arduous matches, which began with van der Veen’s 6-4, 6-0 victory against MacDonald in fourth singles. In first singles, Chow began with a 6-0 sweep in the first set and had a 5-2 lead in the second set, but fatigue allowed Fraser to come back and make it a 5-5 tie. Preserving through pain, Chow won the next two sets to win the match, 6-0, 7-5. In third singles, Batcheller defeated Schutte in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, to clinch the match win for the Hawks. Freshman Anya Barteck won the first set in second singles against Carswell 6-2, but fell 6-4 before dominating the tiebreaker third set in a 6-0 sweep.

Barnett had a valiant effort in fifth singles against Karen that fell short in straight sets, 7-5, 6-3, while Holtermann defeated Chimenti in sixth singles, 6-3, 6-1, to close the day.
The match between the rivals served as a potential SUNYAC Championship preview, with the Hawks and Red Dragons finishing as the number one and two seeds, respectively, in the SUNYAC conference.

SUNY New Paltz will travel to Binghamton for the SUNYAC Tournament on April 29-30. As the number one seed, it will face Cortland or Geneseo, pending the results of their match.