Team Of The Week: Hofstra Pride

Spotlight on Joanna

      Adelphi University Panthers' Joanna Haich is one feline that you don't want to mess with on the tennis tennis court. I interviewed Haich this past Thursday and found out that tennis was a sport that she was destined to play. She explains to me that she would describe her family as a tennis family because before she got into the sport, both her parents as well as her older brother and sister played the sport themselves. Out of all of her family members, she considers her older brother to be a big influence on her and a role model for the sport. Haich told me stories about her brother's experience playing college tennis for the Stony Brook Seawolves. “Overall, my brother enjoyed the college tennis experience saying that although the sport required a lot of work and dedication, it was worth all the effort because he got to meet all kinds of people, make new friends, and experience what its like playing on a team rather than playing for yourself” she said. “I couldn't agree more with my brothers view on the whole experience.”

      Haich greatly admires tennis professional, Kim Clijsters. She claimed that she admired her ever since she was a child and grew up following her. Haich's racquet of choice is the Volkl Organix. Once again, her older brother influence is shown because she desired to emulate her brother in tennis to the point where she used the same brand of racquet he used. As for her own college tennis experience, she loves it since it not only improved the strengths in her game that she had in high school tennis but broaden her playing style as well. Joanna Haich is only a freshman but yet she already is seeing results and is learning to become a better teammate as the season progresses. Doubles is her forte because she enjoys coming to the net and finishing the point. She describes her overall playing style as a serve and volley type.

      Don't forget that Joanna is not just called an athlete but a student athlete. With that being said, Haich likes her class at Adelphi because she feels that their size is much smaller than typical college classes; therefore her instructors give her more personal attention when teaching and she is able to get to know them on a personal level. Her current major is Biology. I asked her how the spring season is going? She replied “It's going pretty well. We are 4-2 overall with no losses in our conference.” She contributed to that record by playing 5^th or 6^th singles and sometime 3^rd doubles. Her analysis on AU coach Lauren Leo is “She knows what she is doing and gets hard when she needs to be to push her players to the best of their abilities” she stated. “However, she understands what every player is going through because she was a former St. John player and is in general, a fun outgoing coach.” This weekend, the Panther will be going away to play Saint Micheal's college on Saturday and Saint Anselm College on Sunday. I asked Haich if she had any thoughts on the upcoming games and she stated that she is excited this weekend because her birthday is Saturday and she is hoping to return to Adelphi with a win. No need to worry about the results of these upcoming games because Joanna Haich gets her team fired up every game with catchy motto that she came up with on her own. “Off court, its day by day on court, its point by point.”

Florida Gators "Chomped" USF Bulls, 7-0

        Warning: never mess with gators in their swamp! Unfortunately for the USF Bulls, they did not heed this warning as they got blanked by the Florida Gators men’s tennis team, 7-0, this past Tuesday evening at Linder Stadium at Ring Tennis complex. The Gators took the doubles point with wins in No. 1 and No. 3 doubles and all six singles won in straight sets. Florida improves to 7-1 on the season in their final match before beginning Southeastern Conference play this weekend. Florida’s Andrew Butz and Bob van Overbeek blew away USF’s Ravi Patel and Federico Sabogal with an 8-3 victory in just 35 minutes at No. 3 doubles. However, the Bulls managed to show their “horns” a little bit when Wael Kilani and Lucas Maric-Salcedo defeated Gators’ Tripper Carleton and Spencer Newman, 8-4. Florida came away with the point after Billy Federhofer and Nassim Slilam won at No. 1 singles against USF’s Oliver Pramming and Yannick Yoshinzawa.     
           Butz opened singles play by scoring first for UF, giving them a 2-0 lead. Butz took out Pramming in a quick timely fashion of 58 minutes at No. 6 singles, 6-1, 6-2. They say good things happen in threes as Federhofer and Carleton, playing at No. 5 and No. 2 singles respectively, followed the trend set by Butz as they won their matched by 6-1, 6-2 scores as well. Federhofer beat Marin-Salcedo and literally a minute later Carleton finished Kilani to clinch the team victory for the Gators. However, the Gators continued their tenacity as they showed no mercy to the Bulls in the remaining matches. Newman downed Sabogal, 6-3, 6-4, at No.4 singles and Florent Diep won against USF’s Juan Carlos Acuna Gerard at No. 3 singles. Van Overbeek completed Florida’s shutout over USF with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Yoshinzawa at No. 1 singles. Florida will start SEC play on Friday at 5 p.m. when the Tennessee Volunteers travel to Gainesville. The Florida Gators will host the Georgia Bulldogs on Sunday at 1 p.m. Both the Volunteers and the Bulldogs will prove to be formidable opponents for the Gators because both teams are ranked in the top 20 in the latest ITA poll. Florida’s head coach Andy Jackson commented on the upcoming match against Tennessee stating “They’ve got a lot of young guys who are going to swing for the fences against the Gators. We kind of swung for the fences against them last year when they were No. 2 and they’re going to do the same thing to us. We’ve just got to make sure that we’re there on Friday, and not try to play 11 matches on Friday. We can play Tennessee and we need to be there, or we’ll start out 0-1 [in the conference].”