Northwestern women’s tennis coach Claire Pollard said No. 1 Florida would have to play its best match of the season to beat the Wildcats. NU forced the Gators to do just that.
Down 3-1 and trailing in two of the three remaining matches, the Cats (23-6) came back to extend all three to third sets before Florida’s Lindsay Dawaf outlasted NU’s Lia Jackson 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 to clinch the 4-1 victory.
“It just took us a while to get comfortable in the environment,” Pollard said. “They’re obviously a great team, and it took us a while to get to play at their level. I thought we showed a lot of character. It would’ve been easy to just roll over and say this is what was supposed to happen, but we didn’t.”
In their third straight Sweet 16 appearance, the Cats failed to advance to the NCAA quarterfinals for a third time. The Gators (22-1) will meet eighth-seeded Wake Forest in the quarterfinals Friday.
The Cats gained early advantages over opponents all season in the doubles competition. But Florida edged out NU’s No. 1 and No. 3 teams, earning 8-5 victories at both positions to earn the match’s first point.
Dawaf and Jessica Lehnhoff beat Jackson and Simona Petrutiu at the No. 1 spot, followed by Zerene Reyes and Annika Bengtsson’s win over the Cats’ Andrea Yung and Ruth Barnes.
The singles competition got off to an inauspicious start for the Cats, as the Gators claimed the first set at five of the six spots. Lehnhoff, the No. 1 player in the nation, was the first to close out a singles match, quickly beating No. 33 Piriou 6-1, 6-1 to put Florida up 2-0.
NU’s Petrutiu continued her dominant play at the No. 4 spot, posting a 6-0, 6-3 win over Alexis Gordon. The senior won four straight games in the second set to cut the Cats’ deficit in half.
“I’ve thought for the past few weeks Simona’s been playing the best on the team,” Pollard said. “She’s just a big-time player and she steps up in the big moments.”
The Gators moved a step closer to victory when Scaringe beat NU’s Barnes in straight sets, increasing her team’s lead to 3-1 with three matches left – all led by Florida players. Just when it looked like the favored Gators were about to finish another easy victory, the Cats put together one last run.
Jackson, facing elimination against Dawaf at No. 2, was down 5-3 in the second set before winning four straight games of her own and pushing the match to a third set.
NU’s Jessica Rush lost the first set 6-2 to Reyes at No. 3, but Rush came back to win the second 6-4. And at No. 5, Yung led throughout the second set, forcing a third.
But Florida was just too strong in the final frames, jumping out to 4-1 and 3-0 advantages over Jackson and Rush (playing on adjacent courts) before Dawaf ended the four-hour marathon and advanced the Gators to their 16th straight quarterfinals.
“I thought we had a good chance, and it was key that they helped each other out,” Pollard said. “Jessica played a really good game but was unfortunate, and if she got down or Lia got down it sort of hurt them both.
“Maybe if they were both able to start off better we could’ve put some pressure on them.”
Pollard said keeping the meet close was a small victory for NU, but only a team victory would have been completely satisfactory.
“I think had we gotten blown away it would’ve been miserable because we just worked too hard as a team,” she said. “I feel very proud of the team for the effort they gave and the fact they made another statement that we belong among the best.”
