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Friday, October 13, 2000 Huskies seeking to make final step By DAN HICKLING, Special to Press Herald Copyright 2000 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. GORHAM -- A successful era will to come to a close for the University of Southern Maine women's tennis team in this weekend's Little East Conference championship. The tournament will mark the end of the line for four seniors, all from Greater Portland, who arrived together four years ago and have left a major imprint on the 6-year-old program. Sara Goodine of South Portland, Kim Vincent of Auburn and Erin O'Brien and Emily McArdle Gorham have been instrumental in USM's rise to prominence in the Little East. Each has brought home Little East individual or doubles titles from past conference championships. Each has earned a spot on what USM Coach Wayne St. Peter calls his "Wall of Fame," which occupies one side of his cramped, cluttered office. There is one bit of unfinished business: winning the Little East team championship. "This year we plan on taking it all," said McArdle. The Huskies will attempt to win their first conference title Saturday and Sunday on the home court of defending champion Rhode Island College. USM was 4-0 this season in conference play, including a 6-3 victory over RIC. The Huskies were 8-3 overall. "Still," said St. Peter, "in my mind, I consider us underdogs. We're underdogs until we win." They couldn't come much closer than they did last year. O'Brien, Goodine and McArdle all won their singles matches, and the doubles pairs of O'Brien-Goodine and McArdle-Vincent captured their flights. Yet, the Huskies came up two points short. "(We) four girls think it's our turn," McArdle said. "We've worked really hard all season. We've put everything we have into this." But the Huskies may have to dig even deeper due to an injury to O'Brien, who cut her knee two weeks ago after falling in a parking garage stairwell. She needed eight stitches and hasn't played since. "We had hoped that she would be healed," said St. Peter, "but the word is that it wasn't healing inside as well as it was outside. She won't be able to play." She had posted impressive career marks of 34-14 in singles and 39-19 in doubles, and she was on pace for her best year ever (8-2 singles, 10-1 doubles) when she got hurt. Vincent will step into O'Brien's No. 2 singles spot, and St. Peter said he expects younger players, such as top freshman Anna Stasiv of the Ukraine (8-1 singles, 7-4 doubles), to pick up the rest of the slack. "We've had so much depth on our team this year," said St. Peter. "We've been playing as deep as 12 kids on our roster and still winning. Each time we've needed them, the freshmen have been able to step up." |