There’s no place like home. Northwestern learned that the hard way this weekend.
In Virginia for its third road trip of the season, NU struggled in a 4-3 loss to William & Mary on Friday before clawing out a 4-2 victory against Old Dominion on Sunday.
The Wildcats (11-2) have been largely untested in their nine home meets, but their road contests have proved different stories.
In four road meets this season, NU holds a slim 14-13 edge over its opponents. At home, it has compiled a 60-3 mark.
Despite struggling on the road, the Cats think they can learn from the losses.
“Having these close matches is helping every one of us,” said sophomore Andrew McCarthy, who finished with a 3-0 record over the weekend. “It’s always good to be in these close matches because they force us to step up and concentrate more.”
Against William & Mary, McCarthy teamed with graduate student Alex Thams to defeat the pair of Marwan Ramadan and Varun Pandit, 8-2. This victory, in addition to the Cats’ win at No. 2 doubles, helped the team take the doubles point for the 11th time this season.
McCarthy’s victory over Richard Wardell was one of two singles victories for NU. The other came from freshman Josh Graves, who pushed his singles record to 10-0 after defeating Ilja Orre, giving the Cats a 3-1 advantage. NU lost its next 2 matches, and once again the meet hinged on the last match on the courts. Earlier in the season against Notre Dame, it was freshman Eric Spector’s match. Against William & Mary on Friday, it was the No. 2 singles match between NU’s Tobias Reitz and Ramadan. Reitz took the first set 6-4, but Ramadan came storming back to win the next two sets 6-3, 6-1.
“I didn’t play well from the start,” Reitz said. “I kind of stole the first set, but I couldn’t get into the match.”
While the No. 67 Cats lost by the same score to then No. 25 Notre Dame and No. 68 William & Mary, the latter hurt more.
“This match was a little different than Notre Dame,” junior captain Alex Sanborn said. “It was more disappointing that we lost against William & Mary than it is against Notre Dame.”
After a day off, NU bounced back against Old Dominion on Sunday, beating the Monarchs 4-2. The Cats managed to take the doubles point from the Monarchs thanks to an 8-6 victory at the No. 3 spot. NU endured a rough start to singles play, as Graves and senior Marc Dwyer fell in straight sets. But thanks to victories from Reitz, Sanborn and Thams, the match was called in NU’s favor before the No. 6 singles match finished.
NU fell to Notre Dame and William & Mary by a combined score of 13-1 a season ago. This year the score was 8-6.
The opportunity to even compete against top-ranked opponents shows improvement to coach Arvid Swan.
“In the two matches we lost 4-3, I’m proud that the guys put us in a position to win,” he said. “And hopefully we’ll convert like we did against Old Dominion going forward.”
