On a beautiful night on the tennis courts on Professor's Row, the women's tennis team dominated the Engineers of MIT, 8-1. The Jumbos won two of three doubles bouts and swept MIT in all six of the singles matches.
Freshman Meghan McCooey and sophomore Mari Homma, and the new pairing of senior Silvia Schmidt with freshman Erica Miller led the way with two wins in the doubles play. Senior tri-captains Jen Luten and Kylyn Deary played a tight match against the MIT aces - freshman Leslie Hansen and senior Joanna Mackay - but were unable to come up with the win.
"Jen and Kylyn played well," head coach Kate Bayard said. "But MIT came out looking for blood."
Luten and Deary started strong, but MIT turned up the intensity and the Jumbos were unable to keep up. The senior pair put up an admirable fight and kept the match close, but ended up falling 8-6.
"Jen and Kylyn almost came back," Bayard said. "They needed to mix in more down-the-line lobs to open up the court a little bit."
Though the Jumbos were not able to pull through with a win in the No. 1 spot, the No. 2 and No. 3 spots dominated MIT and came through with wins 8-5 and 8-2, respectively. McCooey and Homma played well in the No. 2 spot, starting out strong and not letting a potential comeback from MIT junior Mariah Hoover and sophomore Yi Wang stop them from coming out on top.
"Meghan and Mari compliment each other so well," Bayard said. "Meghan plays deep, and Mari has great finesse at the net."
In addition to the win at the No. 2 spot, Schmidt and Miller played phenomenally together for the first time in the No. 3 spot.
"Silvia and Erica looked like they had been playing together for years today," Bayard said. "They came out on fire and played with that same intensity for the entire match."
If Bayard was happy with the team's doubles play, the singles matches were icing on the cake. Tufts swept MIT in six matches in singles play, dominating on some courts and coming through with a couple tight wins in others.
Luten came back on a tear against Hansen in the singles, plowing through the rookie, 6-1, 6-3. In addition to the big win at the top, McCooey bested her opponent, winning 6-0, 6-2. Deary and Homma came through in tough matches in the No. 3 and No. 5 spots respectively, winning 6-3, 10-8, and 6-3, 7-5 in tiebreaker matches.
"Jen played great," Bayard said. "It was a really nice win for her; she was attacking well and using all her weapons. And Meghan is such a smart player."
Schmidt came through big for the Jumbos today, contributing to a win in the doubles competition and blowing past MIT freshman Anisa McCree in singles, 6-1, 6-3. Schmidt, now a senior, is a success story for the Jumbos, having started her tennis career here at Tufts on the JV team before working her way up to play No. 4 singles for the varsity squad.
"Every time she goes out there, she improves," Bayard said of her No. 4. "She is just so driven. That is the perfect word for Silvia: driven."
Overall, both coach and team were very happy with a huge win over a tough MIT team yesterday.
"Every team we play wants to win, and we need to earn each match," Bayard said. "Everyone played feisty tennis today, knowing MIT would come out fighting for each point."
While today was a huge win for the Jumbos, they will continue to work hard and put the pieces of the puzzle together in preparation for New England Championships in two weeks.
"With each match, we get reading for our big tournament coming up," Deary said. "We play a short fall season, and we have improved so much in this short amount of time. The doubles teams have really been coming together."
Bayard also looked ahead to the New England Women's Intercollegiate Tennis Tournament.
"We're in a great place right now: Our singles continues to be solid, our doubles are better, but we still have a lot of work to do if we want to make a splash at NEWITT," she said.
