Women's Tennis | Valiant effort against No. 9 Wellesley in NCAA Tourney comes up just short
May 17The NCAA Tournament marked the culmination of an already successful season for the women's tennis team, as Tufts qualified for the tourney for the eighth straight year. The Jumbos easily advanced past Roger Williams in the first round before finding themselves on the wrong side of a 5-4 heartbreaker against Wellesley. Tufts went into the second round of the tourney looking to avenge a 7-2 loss to Wellesley on April 18. This time, the Jumbos found themselves in a much tighter match. Tufts fell at first doubles but nabbed a victory at third doubles by a score of 8-3, as freshmen Julia Browne and Edwina Stewart finished off a perfect season as a pair, going 10-0 on the doubles court. "Edwina and Julia played flawless doubles at three," coach Kate Bayard said. With the score tied 1-1, only second doubles remained on the court, as sophomores Erica Miller and Meghan McCooey played in arguably the most exciting doubles match of Tufts' season. The duo was in a hole, down 7-5 in the eight-game pro set, but with the entire team looking on, the Jumbos won four straight games to take a 9-7 victory. "Erica and Meghan played gutsy tennis," Bayard said. "They won it because they trusted their shots at net and played aggressively. They continued to play smart but they went for their shots." "They had a huge win," sophomore co-captain Laura Hoguet said. "After the match everybody was so pumped up, and we had really big momentum to carry into singles." In the April match against Wellesley, Tufts was swept in the three doubles matches and went into singles just two points from a loss. This time around, the result at second doubles gave Tufts the coveted edge entering singles play. Only four singles matches were played at a time due to limited court availability, so Tufts sent out its top four singles players to try to seal the match. McCooey ended her No. 2 singles match first, easily handling her opponent 6-0, 6-1 and giving Tufts a 3-1 lead. Senior co-captain Andrea Cenko was next off, falling at fourth singles and bringing the match score to 3-2. At first singles, Browne defeated the No. 22-ranked woman in Div. III, Wellesley junior Jenna Mezin, putting Tufts just a point from victory with three matches to play.
