Chatham University has one less sports team to support and cheer on this year. The tennis team, the only team to be eliminated from Chatham athletics, had been expected to play this fall and its elimination came as a surprise to its former players.

The news broke over the summer, and seemed to have left a lot of team members feeling uninformed as to the reasons why they are not longer playing tennis for their school.

The initial meeting to discuss the future of the team was on June 12, though the email announcing the meeting was sent on June 11. With only two students able to attend the meeting in person, many were informed of the final decision through email. The final decision was explained through the email as being the result of, “a variety of challenges which included resource and recruitment challenges.”

Kristi Hruska, and Lauren Trichtinger are two players who feel that the reasons given to them for the team being cut are rather vague and uninformative. They also feel as if they are missing out on the experiences that they have been working toward throughout their previous semesters on the team.

Hruska is missing out on her senior year as a member of the tennis team and Trichtinger is losing her chance to be awarded the Scholar Athlete of the Year award which celebrates both excellent academic and athletic achievements.

With 11 girls confirmed to play in the fall, five of which were returning starters, the tennis team had enough to play and was not in danger of coming up short as far as participants. However, their previous coach had recently left and a replacement had not yet been found at the time the meeting was held.

Several of the team members attempted to find alternative ways to be able to continue on with the team, but their efforts still were unsuccessful. Among all of the other changes that Chatham is facing this fall semester, the lack of a women’s tennis team is another alteration that can be added to the list.