April 19, 2015
By Jon Cooper
The Good Word
Megan Kurey has seen plenty of highs and lows in her three years playing with Georgia Tech’s Women’s Tennis.
She’s been to the top, earning a national indoor doubles championship and half of an All-America team honor (with good friend Kendal Woodard).
She’s also suffered the pain — figuratively and quite literally at times — of the one thing worse than playing and losing, that is not playing at all, due to injury.
The junior has stuck it out in 2015, playing all season through a painful foot injury, then recently enduring a completely different and totally random setback that cost her a little bit of that precious court time. But as a good leader does, she’s kept her spirits high, fought through the pain and led by example.
Kurey’s heated up down the stretch of this season, winning four of her last five singles matches (one was unfinished) and is unbeaten in her last six in doubles (4-0, two unfinished) with partner Alexa Anton-Ohlmeyer — Woodard is now playing, and winning with freshman Paige Hourigan (they are 8-1 with one unfinished in their last 10 matches).
The result is that the 25th-ranked Jackets, who close out their regular season on Sunday in Syracuse, are 6-2 in the last six ACC matches (7-2 counting a win over Northwestern) and are showing signs of peaking just in time for the ACC Tournament
Kurey talked recently with The Good Word about her goals in singles and doubles as she and the team head into postseason play, getting through this season’s annoying injury bug, and how breaking up is hard to do but sometimes can be good for the team.
THE GOOD WORD: What are your goals as the team wraps up its regular season?
Megan Kurey: We started off the season a little rough. We lost a couple of matches we shouldn’t have but then we got into ACCs and we’ve been doing pretty well. We feel good as a team. We have a lot of freshmen on our team but have built a lot more unity going through the season. We just want to finish strong going into ACCs and we really feel confident that we can pull a couple of upsets at ACCs and get some good wins. We haven’t been able to get past, since I’ve been here, the second round so we’re hoping to go and show them.
TGW: The team seems to be getting hot into ACCs. How important is that for team morale?
KUREY: The ACC Tournament, every team there is good so we just want to go in and do the best we can and I think we have a good shot.
TGW: How is your foot?
KUREY: It’s still kind of bugging me but I’m doing what I can to prevent it from just getting bad. I’m playing through it pretty much. Last week I got a different injury so a lot of things have been happening, but I guess that was a good time to rest my foot (laughs). I missed a couple of matches, but it’s a little rest. I just want to be ready to go into the ACC Tournament.
TGW: You’ve been playing doubles with Alexa, while Kendal’s playing with Paige. Is there a part of you that misses playing with her?
KUREY: Obviously I love playing with Kendal but this year we have a lot of freshmen and also, me being injured and having some injuries on the team, we just felt like we needed to split the team. So the coaches put Paige and Kendal together and they have been doing amazing. They play really well together. Alexa and I, when we can play, she’s been kind of fighting bicep tendonitis, so when we can play, we’ve been doing really well together. I think Kendal and I, from all the experiences we’ve had, being able to help out our teammates in doubles, and they’re doing great at it and are learning a lot, has really helped our team because overall, this season, we’ve been doing really well at the doubles point (9-4, 6-4 in ACC play). So it’s been good. It’s been fun.
TGW: Both you and Alexa and Kendal and Paige are thriving, Is it nice to see that even though you can’t play with Kendal, your splitting up has actually made two teams better?
KUREY: We’ve changed teams around a little, but our three team has been doing well, too. That’s Johnnise [Renaud] and Rasheeda [McAdoo] right now. So doubles has been going pretty well (Tech is 15-5, including a 9-4 mark in ACC play this spring in doubles). It’s been fun because, obviously, Kendal and I have a special place for doubles.
