The Wellesley Blue enjoyed a great season last year winning their 12th NEWMAC title and 6th in a row, while also winning their 13th overall and 6th Seven Sisters title in a row.  The team accumulated numerous individual awards with Nathalie Herman, and Shivani Saxena receiving first team all conference in singles, while Mohona Siddique and Marie Watanabe received second team all conference.  In Doubles, Watanabe received 1st team all conference, while Saxena teamed with Jacqueline Shen to also receive 1st team all doubles honors as well.  The awards were capped with Watanabe receiving Rookie of the year accolades for her efforts. 

The Blue were also represented very well in the individual national rankings published at the end of the year.  Leading the way was Marie Watanabe who received a singles ranking of 35 while also receiving a national ranking of 24 in doubles.  Also, Mohona Siddique, and Jacqueline Shen received a national ranking of 25 in doubles, making Wellesley and Emory the only two teams with multiple doubles teams ranked.  Siddique and Shen had wins over Emory's 19th ranked team and Amherst's 9th ranked team.  The future looks bright for these two.

As a team, in addition to their NEWMAC and Seven Sisters title, the Blue accumulated a 5-5 record against nationally ranked teams, and went 13-5 against regionally ranked teams.  The Blue had a high national ranking of 9 this year, while we finished the year at number 20.  The Blue made their 5th NCAA berth in a row, and again were able to make it past the first round by beating North Shore's Endicott, however succoming to much improved Middlebury in the 2nd round.

The Blue have made it a point to be excellent not just on the court but in the classroom as well.  This year, the team was an ITA All-Academic Team with a 3.49 overall GPA, and 4 members of the 08-09 squad achieved ITA Academic All-America status, lead by our two graduating seniors Jennifer Schwarzkopf and Katelyn Ching.  The other two were rising juniors, Nathalie Herman, and Jacqueline Shen. 

Lastly we want to recognize our year end team awards that were voted on by the players of the team.  We named the MVP award after Karyn Cooper class of '92 for her NCAA individual championship she won, and added two new awards that were named after the winners of the award this year.  We are proud to announce that  Katelyn Ching won both the Team Spirit Award and Most Improved Player Award.  As promised, these awards will be named the Katelyn Ching '09 Team Spirit Award, and the Katelyn Ching '09 Most Improved Player Award.  Finishing out the awards were Senior Jennifer Schwarzkopf, and First Year Marie Watanabe sharing the Karyn Cooper '92 MVP Award. 

The 09-10 season will be headed up and lead by Senior Captain Meghan Stubblebine, who will be returning as a captain for the 2nd year in a row.

We are all looking forward to starting off our new season and continuing the great success.  Please come out and support the team.  Stay tuned for more updates here at the Coaches Corner.

GO BLUE!

~Brian Kuscher