Last year, Kalamazoo was the only team that could stop Saint Mary's. The Belles have continued to prove, however, that a new year means a second chance, winning 6-3 Thursday for their second victory over Kalamazoo in the past week. "They are always one of the better teams," Caitlin Cutler said. "We lost to them last year, and we wanted revenge. It's always a close match when we get together. It was a good win for us because we improved from last weekend, and we were excited about that."No. 1 singles player Jeannie Knish agreed. "This was a really big win for us. We beat them 5-4 last weekend, then improved on that this time," she said. "We have two more conference matches to finish the season, but this was the big one. We have to keep the momentum up for the last two games to wrap up the conference." Saint Mary's currently stands undefeated in conference with a 5-0 record."There were a lot of close matches today, and everyone fought hard," Knish said. "People managed to come through and put in their best effort. Hopefully, we can play this way the rest of the season and keep it up next week."Cutler also felt the team gave a stronger effort than usual. "We are all kind of burned out with one week left in the season, so when we play our toughest competition, we give a little stronger effort and have a little stronger motivation," she said.
