Girls’ Tennis Roundup: Classical girls finish undefeated in NEC play

The Lynn Classical girls notched yet another Northeastern Conference victory to close out their season, beating Beverly Thursday, 5-0.
The Rams (16-2) ended the season with a perfect 10-0 record in NEC play, and hope their hard work will pay off with a high seed in the state tournament.
?We?ve achieved two of our goals: make the tournament and win the conference,” said Classical coach Cathy Ellis. “We should get a high seed, but we?ll have to wait and see.”
Anna Athanasopoulos grabbed the win in first singles, 6-3, 6-2. Meredith MacDonald dropped the first set and then got pushed to a tiebreaker in the final set of second singles, but held on to win, 4-6, 6-4, 8-6. Kayla O?Brien also had her hands full in third singles, but prevailed, 7-6, 6-2.
?It was very evenly matched the whole way through,” said Ellis. “It?s great to play Beverly this close to tournament time, they?re a great test.”
Shea Dunnigan and Briana Silva grabbed a win in first doubles, 6-0, 7-5. Ashley Noel and Zoe Raymond won the second, 6-0, 6-0.
Classical now has more than a full week to prepare for tournament play.
?We?re giving them the weekend off, then we?re back at it on Tuesday,” Ellis said.
Manchester Essex 3, Swampscott 2
Swampscott fought hard in its last regular season match, but the Big Blue were swept in doubles.
Anna Raptunovich took the first singles match for Swampscott, 6-1, 6-0. Vivien Gere faced a tough opponent in second singles, but she pulled it out, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
?They?ve got a really good team,” said Swampscott coach Nina Rogers. “This was great prep for the tournament, and we may even see them again when that time comes.”
The Big Blue (16-4) is one of the few teams in the area that got all their games played on time, and they now have a full week to prepare for the tournament.
?It was really good for us to get this time off,” said Rogers. “There is still plenty for us to work on and the extra week of prep time should do us good. I?m excited to get a full week with them.”
BOYS
Marblehead 5, Winthrop 0
The Magicians notched another Northeastern Conference win after shutting down Winthrop and are 11-0 in NEC play,13-4 overall.
Dimitri Vlassov took the first singles? match, 6-0, 6-2. Griffin Butterfield won the second match, 6-0, 6-1, and Michael Forte took the third, 6-0, 6-0.
In doubles play, Justin Faia and Garrett Tully won the first match, 6-1, 6-4. Corey Stein and Luca Fiori took the second match, 6-4, 6-2.
Mike Alongi can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @m_alongi.