By Liana B. BakerThe Daily Northwestern
In its second-to-last match before the Big Ten season, No. 40 Northwestern edged Harvard 4-3 in Cambridge, Mass., Friday night. NU remains undefeated on Friday nights and stands at 5-3 this season. Even though Harvard was unranked going into the match, NU’s win was far from easy.
“It was the closest match of the year, despite the Louisville match (when the Cats lost 4-3),” said NU coach Paul Torricelli. “Harvard really played well since they had lost the past two games before and they came back with all this momentum.”
Torricelli said that NU “barely won the doubles” and that winning the point made a “huge difference going into the singles.”
Alex Sanborn and Marc Dwyer topped Harvard’s Scott Denenberg and Gideon Valkin, 8-5, while Juan Gomez and Christian Tempke fell 8-4 to their opponents, Dan Nguyen and Chris Clayton.
The point came down to the 27th-ranked pair Willy Lock and Matt Christian who pushed their match to a tiebreaker before beating Harvard’s Michael Hayes and Ashwin Kumar 9-8, (7-4).
“They played like two seniors,” Torricelli said. “Experience made a big difference in the win.”
The singles matches got off to an inauspicious start for NU, with four players finding themselves down in the first set.
“We were getting beat all over the place, but we hung in there,” Torricelli said of the weak start.
The Crimson notched two wins in singles in the No. 4 and No. 3 spots, NU was down 2-1. Sanborn rectified the situation at No. 6, by beating Michael Kalfayan 6-0, 6-3 convincingly in the first set and tying the score. Harvard responded with a win at No. 5 after Gideon Valkin beat Dwyer 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 in a tiebreaker.
Senior Christian Tempke helped his team’s cause with a win over Ashwin Kumar. Before the match, Tempke spoke about facing Kumar’s unconventional playing style of playing close to the net. Torricelli also said it was a very difficult match-up stylewise and that Kumar was an aggressive opponent.
“Tempke volleyed a lot, really mixed up his game and really ran way in the third set,” Torricelli said of Tempke’s win, which tied up the match 3-3.
For the second weekend in a row, Lock was the last Cat fighting on the court. He needed three sets to beat No. 93 Clayton 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. Torricelli attributes Lock’s late finishes to the fact that he’s a baseliner and is often evenly matched with his opponent in the No. 1.
“Willy just played fantastic,” Torricelli said.
Torricelli expects Harvard to place highly when this week’s updated national rankings are released and said Friday night’s win will help NU’s bid to make it to the NCAA’s.
Reach Liana Baker at [email protected].
