By Bill Alden

Finishing 11th of 20 schools in the Mercer County Tournament last week, the Princeton Day School girls’ tennis squad fell well short of contending for a team title.

But PDS head coach Michael Augsberger doesn’t view the team finish as telling the whole story of his team’s performance at the event.

“You can look at the standings board and feel that it is a disappointment,” said Augsberger. “But you have to understand the maturity comes from understanding that it is not as simple as what the results say because so much goes into who do you play, when do you play them. You can go into the tournament feeling we are a strong team, everyone is performing really well, and you can let it be a heartbreaking experience. Or you can say there are all of these reasons why the scoreline looked this way, and we are actually really on a good track. It is matter of maintaining that toughness.”

The team’s second doubles team of freshman Zarna Kalra and junior Kavita Amin showed toughness as they advanced the farthest for the Panthers, making the quarterfinals in their flight.

“They took off with a win against Lawrence, that was our only win in the round of 16,” said Augsberger of the pair which posted a 6-0, 6-1 win over the Lawrence team. “They pretty much had that match under wraps even though the second set was tighter. They had asserted themselves a bit in the first set so they had it under control. Then they played a really tight match against Lawrenceville (Emily Lee and Charlotte Aitken-Davies), who won the whole thing. That first set we were up 4-3 and then dropped it at 6-4. Those two games to get to 4-3 were really strong. Lawrenceville was just a little too tough and too consistent and they ended up winning the match 6-4, 6-2.”

Senior Kristina Wang displayed some consistency, making it to the consolation final at second singles.

“Kristina lost to Lawrence 8-4 — we had seen the Lawrence No. 2 (Kerianne
Nweje) in a dual match and she is really tough,” said Augsberger. “She has an incredible amount of power and is frustrating to play. The goal is to make her run and try to hit shots that are out of her comfort zone.”

At first doubles, the pair of seniors Ashlyn Du and Hannah Park matched Wang as they also advanced to the consolation final.

“Their chemistry is getting better and better every match,” said Augsberger. “They got all way to 8-6 in a consolation final against South (Caitlyn Co and Caris Co), which is a really strong team.”

The squad’s two other singles players, junior Arya Kalra at first and freshman Prisha Tiwari at third, gained some valuable experience at the event.

“Arya performed really well in the opening match — she beat Nottingham 8-3,” said Augsberger of Tiwari, who fell 6-0, 6-0 to Rasika Anandakumar of WW/P-South in her next match. “She had to face South in the round of 32; that was a tough task for her with Rasika having so much experience and so much power. Prisha played incredible in her matcha third singles, you look at the score line, she lost 6-2, 6-1 but she came out firing against Peddie (Lakhi Raju), who had just defeated the No. 1 seed and ended up winning the tournament.”

With the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Non-Public state tournament and the Prep B state tourney coming up in the next few weeks, Augsberger believes that competing in the MCT will help his players be battle-tested for those events.

“It is good to be exposed to the level of competition that we have here in the area,” said Augsberger. “It would be nice if we were exposed to it a little deeper in the tournament rather than in the first round. Everyone performed well. I think what got us was the draw, everyone faced really, really strong competition in that first round.”