Photo by Kate Vavra ‘26

By Elodie Muller ’29

Staff Writer

The weekend of Oct. 10 marked the end of an era in Mount Holyoke Athletics as the tennis team played in its last match ever after the sport was cut in May 2024. The team attended the New England Women’s Invitational Tennis Tournament — abbreviated as NEWITT — hosted at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Mount Holyoke was one of 13 colleges participating in the tournament. The roster included Smith College, Trinity College, Amherst College, MIT, Wesleyan University, Springfield College, Wheaton College, Emerson College, Colby College, University of Saint Joseph and Gordon College. Four Mount Holyoke students competed in the tournament: Kennedy Bagley-Fortner ’26, Cal Smith ’26, Kate Vavra ’26 and Lara Gao ’26.

“NEWITT … is one of the longest-running events in women’s Division III tennis. It started over forty years ago and used to have schools compete across all divisions against each other in the North East.” Caitlyn Lawrence, head coach of the Smith College tennis team, said in an email to Mount Holyoke News.

In the NEWITT, teams entered groups of two to three players in different draws. The players then competed in two singles matches and one doubles match, with teams that won two out of the three matches moving up in the draw.

“The tournament is a highlight for teams because of the format,” Lawrence said. “This team-based format makes this tournament unique and a lot of fun. It also means a lot of tennis is played. Over three days, we had over 230 matches.”

Smith and Vavra each won two singles matches apiece, and teamed up for two doubles match wins. Smith defeated Abigail Miner of Emerson College with a final score of 8-3 and won a victory against Teah Login of Emerson College by default due to injury. Vavra went up against and defeated Carlson Jones of Emerson College with a set score of 8-7 and finished the tournament with a victory against Anna Matsura of Emerson College, with the score from that match being 7-6, 7-6.

Smith and Vavra also teamed up to defeat Wheaton College’s number one-ranked doubles duo, Kara Greenlee and Alissa Ortiz, with a final score of 7-6 and a tiebreak score of 7-4. Smith and Vavra also had success against Miner and Jones of Emerson College with a final score of 6-3.

Newcomer Gao had success as well, defeating Kathy Kim of Gordon College with a final score of 7-6, 3-6, and 10-8. Gao was not previously a member of the tennis team, but played in the tournament due to her prior experience in tennis and squash.

“I wish there were more matches for us to play! I just feel like I played such a fun tournament with such an amazing team, had so much fun every single point, so I really wish the team could keep playing!” Gao said in an email to Mount Holyoke News.

Also in an email to Mount Holyoke News, previous number one player for the varsity tennis team Annika Chai ’25 offered her perspective. “As sad as it is that this is the last tournament for the Mount Holyoke varsity tennis team, I could not be prouder of my fellow teammates for competing! I would like to emphasize the fact that they chose to compete completely on their own. They were not forced by any commitment, there was no coach providing guidance or assistance on court and absolutely no support was provided by athletics. They won matches against NEWMAC schools that other MHC varsity teams would be lucky to even have close games against. Cal, Kennedy and Kate demonstrated everything a student-athlete at Mount Holyoke should be and more.”

With this tournament, the varsity tennis program at Mount Holyoke came to an end. Nevertheless, the players went out with their heads held high and showed the value that their program had to the college.

Karishma Ramkarran ’27 contributed fact-checking.