By: Al Wicklund
Suddenly, the sun broke through the clouds of an early-season losing pattern and the Monroe Township High School girls tennis team’s season had a brighter look.
Winners in one of their first nine matches, the Falcon girls enjoyed their best stretch of the season, taking two of four matches between Wednesday, Oct. 10, and Monday of this week.
"Much of our strength lies in our singles and we swept the three singles matches in both wins," Coach Trudy Marmorek said earlier this week.
She said the wins were "good for morale."
The team has been playing with a goal of steady improvement, but there’s nothing like a couple of wins to validate that improvement, she said.
The Falcons began their winning ways Wednesday, Oct. 10, when they downed Carteret, 4-1.
The win was the first of three matches played on three consecutive days. Monroe lost to Colonia, 4-1, on Thursday, Oct. 11, and , 5-0, to South Plainfield the following day.
The Monroe girls then came back with a win Monday, outscoring Sayreville, 3-2, to put their season’s record at 3-9.
In the win over Sayreville, Monroe junior Kaitlyn Schobert, scored a three-set, comeback win over Ariel Wonk in first singles and teammates Meredith Blumenstock, a senior, and sophomore Lorin Mordecai were winners at second and third singles, respectively, to nail down the win.
Sayreville’s Wong took the first set from Schobert, 7-5, but the Monroe junior asserted herself in the next two sets, winning both by scores of 6-2. Blumenstock defeated Steffi Marshall, 6-4, 6-0, and Mordecai defeated Ravnit Nagi, 6-3. 6-1.
Sayreville took both doubles matches, Samantha Sooley and Saman Khan defeated Kim Gobac, a junior, and soph Ashley Widmer, 6-3, 6-2, in first doubles and Juliette Wong and SoJung Park defeated freshman Robin Romm and Surina Patel, a sophomore, 6-3, 6-3.
Against Carteret, all four Monroe points were won in straight sets. In singles, Blumenstock took the second singles match, 6-2, 6-1, while Mordecai won at third singles, 7-5, 6-1.
The Falcons enjoyed a sweep of the doubles matches as Gobac and Widmer won first doubles, 5-7, 6-4, 6-0, and Patel and Romm won second doubles, 6-0, 6-1.
Carteret’s Samantha Martin defeated Schobert in first singles, 7-5, 7-5, for her team’s point.
In the loss to Colonia, Mordecai accounted for Monroe’s point, taking a stubbornly-contested, third-singles match from Anna Garber, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.
Mordecai won three matches in the last week to boost her season total to five.

