Penn Charter sophomore Leila Sor helped the Quakers sweep the singles matches in last week's win at Episcopal Academy. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher It's still early days in the Inter-Ac …
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by Tom Utescher
It's still early days in the Inter-Ac League tennis season, but the Penn Charter girls got off to a great start in last Tuesday's opener at Episcopal Academy, home of the defending champion Churchwomen.
A high-powered program by either independent school or public school standards, Episcopal has either won outright or shared the Inter-Ac title 12 of the past 14 years, so for Penn Charter to open up this fall with a 4-3 victory in Newtown Square was a notable achievement.
The visiting Quakers won all three singles matches and the fourth doubles bout in straight sets. EA prevailed in the other three doubles flights, going to a third set in two of those contests.
"It was a good win for us, but there are other good teams in the league and we just plan to take things one match at a time," remarked Rose Weinstein, who is now in her 13th season piloting the Penn Charter program.
Weinstein said that in past years the Quakers have finished second in the league, but have never won the title, which goes to the team with the best record in the single round of head-to-head league matches. The Inter-Ac individual tournament at the end of the season does not affect the official team standings. Last fall PC placed third after losing to both EA and Baldwin school in 3-4 matches decided by tiebreakers.
At Episcopal last week, PC senior Schuyler LaBarge charged through her second singles match in about half-an-hour, putting up scores of 6-1, 6-0. Sophomore Leila Sor soon followed with a 6-3, 6-2 verdict at third singles, and the other LaBarge sister, 10th-grader Brinlea, won the number one match at 6-2, 6-1.
"We already had the three wins from the singles matches in around 45 minutes," Coach Weinstein said, "and then fourth doubles won."
Lizzie Drebin and Gwen Davis captured this last match, 6-2, 6-4, with the two Quakers juniors moving up out of a 4-4 tie to take the second set.
Charter had the four wins it needed to clinch the team victory before EA's first doubles tandem won against Quakers senior Natalie Williams and junior Chloe Masters (6-4, 6-3).
The Churchwomen tightened up the final team score with three-set wins in the other two doubles bouts. At number two Penn Charter had senior Jennie Reisman playing with freshman J.J. Birnie (4-6, 6-4, 3-6), and in the third flight were junior Meredith Bernstein and senior Olivia Brody-Bizar (2-6, 6-4, 1-6).
UPDATE: Back home on their own Rieger Courts last Friday, the Quakers had little difficulty turning away the Owls of Agnes Irwin School, netting a 6-1 victory that gave them a 2-0 record at the end of the first week of Inter-Ac competition.