Age-old sports wisdom says the best players step up in the biggest games. Coming off two of the worst matches of her career, Northwestern’s Marine Piriou entered her biggest match of the year at the worst possible time.
But the junior showed why she’s the No. 29 singles player in the nation, defeating Wisconsin’s Vanessa Rauh in straight sets Sunday to clinch the NU women’s tennis team’s fourth straight Big Ten championship.
The Wildcats (21-5) also extended their conference winning streak to 28 matches with the 4-1 win over the Badgers (16-8), which followed victories in the quarterfinals against Purdue (10-12) on Friday and in the semifinals against Iowa (9-13) on Saturday in Bloomington, Ind.
Piriou, who posted a 9-1 record against Big Ten opponents during the regular season, was upset by the Boilermakers’ Melissa Iqbal, 6-3, 6-0. Her difficulties continued against the Hawkeyes, as Toni Neykova’s 6-2, 6-2 win marked Piriou’s second straight tournament loss to an opponent she beat easily during the regular season.
Following the losses Piriou met with head coach Claire Pollard to fine-tune her game. It worked.
She regained her form against Wisconsin, coming back from an early 3-0 deficit to win 10 straight games at one point and earn a 6-3, 6-3 victory. Both Pollard and Piriou agreed that problems with the left hander’s forehand were at the root of her troubles.
“The last two days I’ve had two of the worst games of my life because I just didn’t have my forehand,” Piriou said. “But my coach found a way to cheer me up and realize what I could do to turn the match in my favor and just find a way to win it. It was such a great feeling to be able to give the victory to my team.”
Pollard praised her No. 1 player for coming back to win in NU’s most important match.
“You can’t say enough about someone coming back after playing two of her worst matches in her career at Northwestern, then coming back to play one of her best, especially under the circumstances,” Pollard said.
But Piriou was only a piece of the puzzle in the Cats’ fourth straight championship.
The play of each of its doubles teams has been a strength all season long for the Cats, and the trend continued in the tournament. Against the Badgers, NU’s teams of Piriou-Jessica Rush (13-0 against Big Ten opponents) and Ruth Barnes-Andrea Yung each won to clinch the doubles point.
Senior Simona Petrutiu put the Cats up 2-0 with a straight-sets victory over Katie McGaffigan at No. 4. After Badgers freshman Lindsay Martin beat Barnes 6-3, 6-3 at No. 6 to cut the deficit to 2-1, Rush put the Cats one win away from victory, beating Wisconsin’s Shana McElroy 6-4, 6-1 at No. 3. Piriou then sealed the win over the Badgers, who gave NU its most difficult conference match of the regular season — a 4-3 Cats win on April 13.
“During the regular season we prepared for Wisconsin just like we had for everyone else, but we didn’t really know how good they were and they took us by surprise,” Pollard said. “Today we knew we had to play a good match. After winning the doubles point I felt if we could just get on top of them early it would take the wind out of their sails.”
As the No. 1 seed, NU earned a bye in the first round and faced eighth-seeded Purdue in the quarterfinals, winning 4-1. No. 6 Iowa gave the Cats a tougher time, pulling to within 3-2 before Lia Jackson’s three-set win at No. 2 ended the Hawkeyes’ upset bid.
Pollard said going on the road last weekend and the overall improvement of the Big Ten made winning the championship more difficult than in recent years.
“Last weekend was the first time we’ve been on the road the weekend before Big Tens,” Pollard said. “But we did a really good job tapering our conditioning and concentrating on getting more sleep. We addressed the fact that the league was better and we knew we would have to play three good matches to win.”
