After a close 5-4 loss to No. 8 Williams last Thursday, the No. 27 women's tennis team successfully defended its home court with a solid 6-3 performance against the No. 22 Connecticut College Camels on Tuesday.
With this victory over a NESCAC rival, Tufts advanced its record to 7-7 on the season and is 3-4 in NESCAC competition. The Camels fell to 9-7 with the loss.
"I feel really good about [Tuesday]," coach Kate Bayard said. "I knew it would be close all the way through with Connecticut College."
"We really pulled through with the win," senior captain Becky Bram said. "Everyone played really well and they're obviously a tough team. We showed that we were able to beat them handily, even though they're ranked a few spots ahead of us."
The Jumbos saw strong play in doubles, picking up two of the three matches and narrowly losing the third. Even though the squad lost to Williams last week, there has been a marked improvement in doubles over the course of these two matches.
"So far this spring season, we weren't pulling our weight in doubles, and we were relying on the singles to win matches," Bayard said. "In both [the Williams and Conn. College] matches, it was neat to see everything all come together and be confident in doubles."
At the No. 1 slot, Bram and junior Jen Luten defeated Conn. College juniors Amanda Poe and Beret Remak, 8-5. At No. 2, Tufts juniors Kylyn Deary and Stephanie Ruley outlasted senior Holly Bawden and junior Britt Fallon to win 9-7. (Deary is a senior staff writer for the Daily sports department.)
"Kylyn and Steph really stepped it up and played extremely gutsy tennis to give us the 2-1 lead going into the singles matches," Bayard said.
The Jumbos dropped the No. 3 match as junior Silvia Schmid and sophomore Andrea Cenko fell to Camel sophomores Kari Barklis and Danielle Coleman by a narrow 8-6 score.
The middle of Tufts' singles lineup dominated the Camels. At No. 2, Bram trounced Poe handily to win in straight sets, 6-1, 6-1. In the third spot, Ruley downed Bawden by a 6-3, 6-1 score. Deary played almost perfectly against Coleman, dropping only one game en route to a 6-0, 6-1 victory at the No. 4 position. The Jumbos' final singles victory came at No. 5, where Schmid defeated Fallon 6-2, 6-4.
The only losses at singles came from the first and sixth positions. At No. 1, Luten and Remak competed in an exhausting three-set contest. Luten grabbed the first set, but Remak took the next two to win 5-7, 7-5, 6-2. Luten experienced hand cramps early in the third set, but still managed to finish the match.
Even though the Jumbos had already clinched the match before the start of Luten and Remak's third set, the players decided to play a full set rather than a 10-point super-tiebreaker for the purposes of individual rankings.
At No. 6, Cenko fell to Barklis 6-3, 2-6, 10-8.
Tuesday's bout with the Camels was the last home match for the Jumbos this season and the last home match of Bram's career.
"It's definitely great having it be my last home match and winning," Bram said. "It was a tough team too, and it was sad, but it was also the perfect way to end it."
With this win over Conn. College, Tufts moves closer to clinching one of the six spots to compete in the NCAA Div. III Regional Tournament, the gatekeeper of the national tournament.
"[Tuesday] was extremely important for us potentially to qualify for the NCAAs," Bayard said.
On Saturday, the team will visit the unranked Bates Bobcats with the hope of securing a bid to the regional tournament.
"Ranking-wise, we should definitely beat [Bates], but obviously we're going to take them as seriously as any other team," Bram said. "We should be able to clinch this match and this should get us in the NCAAs."
The Conn. College win
followed a tough 5-4 league loss to Williams on Friday. The Tufts doubles pairs played tough tennis, as Deary and Ruley teamed up to win 8-2 at No. 2 and Cenko and freshman Mari Homma picked up the 8-5 victory at No. 3. Bram and Luten, competing again at No. 1, lost in a tiebreaker 9-8 (4) to their Williams opponents.
In spite of the loss, the match represented a major turnaround for Tufts' doubles teams that was continued on Tuesday. The past two contests have demonstrated the necessity of a strong doubles lineup.
"I felt very good after the match at Williams because it was a huge breakthrough for our doubles," Bayard said. "The key [to winning future matches] is going to be how we play doubles because it makes such a big difference in singles to already be up a match in doubles."
