Once again, it was close but no cigar for the women's tennis team against Williams. For the second consecutive year, the Jumbos fell by a single point to the Ephs, losing 5-4 on Sunday afternoon in Williamstown, Mass.
Tufts captured the top two singles as well as the doubles point, but faltered at the third through sixth singles matches. Coach Jim Watson's crew closed the season with three straight losses in dual-match play to finish at 10-3 after a 10-0 start, and now awaits a trip to the upcoming NCAA Regional Tournament, also held at Williams this Friday, where the team will meet with the nationally 29th-ranked Vassar squad.
Junior Jen Lejb and freshman Jen Luten fell 8-3 at top doubles to Steph Hall and Kate Troy, but the Jumbos rallied to steal the doubles point when their second and third pairs came through. Senior captain Barclay Gang and junior Neda Pisheva won 8-3 over Julie Mallory and Alex McLennan at number two doubles, and junior Lisa Miller and freshman Kylyn Deary pulled out an 8-6 victory over Caroline Wasserman and Britney Binet at the third spot.
After a several-week stay at two singles, Lejb returned to number one and defeated Hall, ranked number one regionally, by an impressive score of 6-0, 6-2.
"Steph Hall plays right into Jen's game," Watson said. "Both like a fast-paced aggressive game, and Jen really thrived on that. She was aggressive early, she refused to be pushed back, and she was creating angles and opportunities and really scoring some nice high-risk shots."
Luten, who had lost her last three dual-meet matches at the top spot, dropped down to number two but seemed unfazed, trumping Mallory 6-3, 6-2 to give the Jumbos their fourth point. The team couldn't get one more, however, as the third through sixth Jumbos all fell in straight sets without winning more than two games in a single set.
"The overall match score was close, but it was anticlimactic in the sense that the matches we won were won easily, and the matches they won were won easily at least in terms of set score," Watson said. "Our losses look brutal, but the battles within the games were incredibly intense. Games were going to deuce and lasting for 15, 20 minutes."
Sophomore Becky Bram fell 6-1, 6-2 at the third singles spot while Gang lost 6-0, 6-2 at the fourth slot. Neither has won a singles match since the Middlebury Invitational in the first weekend of April
"Becky attempted to be more aggressive [against Williams]," Watson said. "But she still needs to play more to win and less not to lose. She has to take some chances and she can do it. Barclay is the opposite; she's aggressive and she needs to temper that with more patience. If we could mix the two you'd have a perfect player."
At the fifth and sixth singles spots, Miller fell 6-2, 6-2 to the Ephs' Wasserman while Deary fell to Binet 6-0, 6-2.
Tufts will compete in its fourth straight NCAA Regional Tournament this Friday. Host Williams has proved to be the thorn in the side of the Jumbo team, beating Tufts in the Regional finals last spring, 5-3, and in 2001 by a 6-3 margin. The team fell to Amherst by the same score in 2002.
Vassar, the Jumbos' first round opponent, enters the tournament ranked sixth regionally with a 19-2 season record. The two schools last clashed in the first round of the 2001 Regional Tournament, with the Jumbos coming out on top, 5-1. This spring, the winner of the clash will face the winner of Williams and the College of New Jersey on Saturday.
