The Monmouth College women’s tennis team had lofty goals going into the 2007 season:  they wanted to earn a Midwest Conference team championship playoff spot for the first time since the program was resurrected in 2002.
            Unfortunately, the Scots were not able to beat out Lake Forest College for second place and a playoff bid, but they did have a successful season nonetheless.
            The team finished with a 7-5 overall record, and they barely missed the MWC playoffs for the second consecutive season, as they finished with a 2-2 conference record.
            The match that actually determined the team’s fate was the Scots’ first match of the season against Lake Forest College. The Scots were defeated by Lake Forest 5-4 in that early conference match-up, and thus Lake Forest wound up with the team championship playoff bid coveted by the Scots.
            Monmouth ended their regular season on a high note, as they defeated Knox College 6-3 in Galesburg on Oct. 8. Monmouth won all but two of their singles competitions; winners included: juniors Cassie Frantz, Brittany Donnelly and Maddie Ethington and freshman Kim Wegner.
            The combination of Frantz and Donnelly won in doubles competition, along with the combination of Wegner and freshman Emily Isaacs.
            Frantz was happy to see the team win their final regular season match, especially since it was against Knox College, their biggest rivals.
            “It was a good morale booster; it always is,” Frantz said. “They still give us some competition, but we go in there with confidence.”
            To conclude their season, the Scots traveled to Madison, Wis., for the Midwest Conference Tournament; the team finished in seventh place out of 10 teams.
            When looking at Monmouth’s roster, it is easy to notice the youth of the team. Frantz, Donnelly and Ethington are the only three juniors on the squad; the rest of the team is freshmen or sophomores.
            “The freshmen saw some hard competition; some of them struggled and some of them did well,” Frantz said. “Now that they’ve seen college competition I think next year will be even better because they are prepared; they know what they are going to see.”
            In addition to the young roster, the team’s head coach, Kerry Frantz (who is Cassie’s father) just completed his second season leading the Scots. The team hopes to keep improving, and they believe they will make a considerable push for the playoffs next year.

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