Nationally ranked No. 19 and seeded fifth in this weekend's NESCAC Tournament, the women's tennis team went into its match on Friday afternoon hoping for an upset of the nation's No. 3 team and league's fourth-seeded Williams.
Unfortunately for the Jumbos, things did not go as planned.
After suffering a 5-2 loss, the Jumbos are now hoping their season will continue with an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. With the top two seeds of the tournament out of championship contention after losing their first matches, and with only the NESCAC champion receiving an automatic bid, this may be tough for the Jumbo squad.
"I think we are a long shot for an at-large bid, just because of the strength of the NESCAC," senior tri-captain Kylyn Deary said. "This year, the bids for Nationals have changed, making it difficult for many teams from one division to make it into the tournament. Even though we are ranked 19th, it is still tough to get in because four of the top six teams in the nation are from the NESCAC."
"I'd be surprised if the NCAA selects more than three or four teams in the NESCAC," coach Kate Bayard said. "But then again, five teams including us are top 20 in the country right now. It's hard to know, but I'm hopeful."
If Williams was the last match of the season for the Jumbos, at least they ended their season with a fight. Against some of the best doubles pairs in the country, the duo of senior tri-captains Deary and Jen Luten dominated doubles play in the No. 1 spot, blowing away Eph junior Anne Schneidman and sophomore Cary Gibson by a score of 8-1.
"Jen and Kylyn played flawless doubles," Bayard said. "They could do no wrong out there."
Although the Jumbos secured a big win in the No. 1 spot, they were unable to keep up in the No. 2 and 3 doubles ranks.
The No. 2 pair of freshman Meghan McCooey and junior Andrea Cenko fell to the Williams duo of rookie Grace Baljon and junior Allison Rottkamp 8-1. Similarly, in the No. 3 spot, freshman Erica Miller and sophomore Mari Homma had trouble with Eph sophomore Annie Hancock and first year Ashley Parsons, falling 8-0 to give the Ephs the 2-1 advantage going into singles play.
"Meghan and Andrea were right there in every game," Bayard said. "They did some nice things, but they did not win the important points. Mari and Erica struggled to find their rhythm in doubles, and their opponents didn't give them much leeway at all."
"Our win was huge," Luten said. "We played one of the best teams in the NESCAC and dominated. The other doubles were definitely a letdown. I thought we would be more competitive with them, especially because we have been working so hard on doubles."
With the doubles matches behind them, the Jumbos were hoping for a strong singles lineup to get them back into the match. But the Ephs did not give an inch, taking four of six singles matches and moving the final score to 5-2. Two of the singles matches did not finish after Williams had secured the win.
"I thought the singles play was definitely better than our doubles," Luten said. "Everyone fought hard and played with intensity. We just came up a little short."
The big wins in singles came from Luten and Cenko, who won in the No. 1 and No. 3 spots, respectively. The match was played to decision, so once Williams had won five three singles matches, the entire match was called. For this reason, the No. 1 and No. 5 singles did not finish and were just called, giving Luten the win in the No. 1 spot and cutting Deary's match short in the No. 5 spot.
"Many of the singles matches were quite close," Bayard said. "Jen was serving at ad-in to go up 5-3 in the third set when we stopped. Kylyn was close in the second set after losing the first set in a tiebreaker. Andrea was up a set and up in the second set when her opponent had to stop due to injury, and Meghan lost a close match."
Although the Jumbos did suffer a loss and are waiting hopefully for an at-large bid to keep their season going, players and coaches alike are happy with the way in which the team performed.
"I'm proud of how we earned each point in singles and made our opponents work for any points they won," Deary said. "We were a feisty team for sure. I'm also proud of our sportsmanship throughout the line-up. This match was different than previous matches because all three doubles matches were one-sided, either in our favor or against us. So in a way it was easier for the players to let go after doubles and focus right away on singles."
The tournament's semifinals featured two upsets: fourth-seeded Williams upset No. 1-seeded Middlebury 8-1, while third-seed Amherst upset second-seeded Bowdoin 7-2. With the wins, Amherst and Williams advanced to the finals and played for the championship on Sunday afternoon, with Amherst winning 5-4.
Now that Amherst has secured the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, Bowdoin, Middlebury and Williams will be alongside the Jumbos waiting for word of an at-large bid and a chance to keep their seasons alive.
