History appears to have repeated itself again. And again.
For the third time in as many weekend matches, Northwestern has dropped the first match and reversed their fortunes in the upcoming days.
After having the same outcome in their last competitive action on a road trip to Michigan, the No. 59 Wildcats (9-7, 3-2 Big Ten) split their weekend series against No. 46 Penn State and Indiana. The team lost 6-1 to the Nittany Lions, with freshman Marc Dwyer getting the lone point at No. 4 singles, but failed to win with partner Juan Gomez against his brother James while playing No. 3 doubles.
“It was a lot of fun to play my brother,” Marc Dwyer said. “It is unfortunate we didn’t play that well being that it was a great matchup.”
The team played several close matches, but in the end, the cards fell in the Nittany Lions’ favor.
“The team was just flat,” coach Paul Torricelli said. “There is no excuse for the way we played on Friday.”
The team appeared to be rusty from not seeing competitive action in three weeks and was just going through the motions, according to senior captain Adam Schaechterle.
While Penn State (12-2, 2-2) won its seventh of eight matches, the Cats’ Willy Lock had his six-match winning streak snapped Friday after losing to Malcolm Scatliffe 6-4, 6-3, at No. 2 singles.
“It was really windy,” Lock said. “But he just played better than me and I knew I could play better.”
Junior Christian Tempke lost a nail-biter to Penn State’s Mark Barry in three sets, 1-6, 6-4, 6-7 (5) for the No. 1 singles point.
Despite Tempke’s heartbreak, which set the tone for the rest of the match, the Cats regrouped during their off day to discover the strategy on beating the Hoosiers.
“I told them that we needed to be more emotional and support each other a lot better,” Torricelli said. “On Sunday we did that, and I think that was the difference.”
Regardless of the team’s mental state, the weather looked to toy with the Cats once again, as Sunday’s matches were sent indoors, giving Indiana’s big servers the advantage on the faster surface.
But what should have helped the Hoosiers (13-7, 3-2) turned against them when Lock delivered a crushing 6-1 second-set blow against David Bubenicek.
The Cats rallied to pull off a tense 4-3 victory when Schaechterle dug out a win at No. 5 singles to clinch the match for NU.
Indiana pulled ahead early with wins against Matt Christian and Schaechterle at No. 1 doubles and Tempke at No. 1 singles.
The Cats managed to get back into the match after Gomez’s straight-set victory against Dara Mcloughlin. Gomez received a split mark on the day with his win at No. 3 singles after losing his doubles match earlier in the day.
With freshman Alexey Evstratenkov delivering at No. 6 singles to even the team score at three, Schaechterle won two close tiebreak sets to give the Cats the ‘W’ and get the team winning as they head into four-straight home conference matches.
“Alexey did it for us,” Schaechterle said. “He won the match by being really clutch at No. 6.”
Reach Brian Regan at [email protected].
