Saint Mary's returned to the winner's circle Monday afternoon as it defeated conference foe Alma by the convincing score of 8-1.
The win puts the Belles overall record at 8-6 and improves their record to 3-1 in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA). After opening the season with conference victories over Olivet and Adrian, Saint Mary's lost its first conference match last week against Hope.
Monday afternoon, the Belles looked more like the team of their first two conference matches.
"I think we're happy with how we played on Monday," junior Tara O'Brien said. "Especially considering that we didn't play up to our potential, I think we did a real good job to beat Alma by so much."
Picking up wins for the Saint Mary's in singles were No. 1 Kristen Palombo, No. 2 Kelly McDavitt, No. 4 O'Brien, No. 5 Melissa Dingler and No. 6 Grace Gordon. All of the players needed only two sets to complete their matches.
In doubles action, the teams of McDavitt and Calie Mulcahy, Palombo and Gordon and O'Brien and Mary Elizabeth Campbell swept the competition as they all won their matches in just two sets.
The team admitted that it was still feeling the effects of its two matches this past weekend, but the Belles were able to turn that fact into a positive.
"We were all still lagging a little from this weekend as well as the long car ride to Alma, so it was really good to see that we can still win even when we don't have our 'A' game," Palombo said.
Saint Mary's will have little time to rest after Monday's match as it has a home conference match against Tri-State today at 3 p.m. Tri-State is 7-4 on the season.
