With two matches still in progress during No. 1 Northwestern’s bout against No. 3 Notre Dame Saturday, things were starting to look a little dicey for the Wildcats.
NU held a slim 3-2 lead over Notre Dame, but the Fighting Irish were poised to tie the score in fourth singles, where Shannon Mathews had No. 119 Lauren Lui at match point. After dropping the first set, Notre Dame’s No. 35 Kelcy Tefft had a 4-2 advantage on No. 2 Maria Mosolova in the second set, giving the Irish another potential opening.
Lui repeatedly battled back from match point, eventually recovering from a 5-3 deficit to win the second set. She ultimately fell to Mathews, but not until after Mosolova clinched NU’s 4-3 win in a second-set tiebreaker against Tefft.
By extending her game, Lui kept the pressure off of Mosolova, who had been struggling with Tefft’s style of play throughout the match.
“It’s not a good matchup for me because she slices every ball,” Mosolova said. “My main goal was to stay composed and not get upset if something didn’t go my way. (Lui) helped me a lot that she stayed out there. Otherwise, there would have been much more pressure on me.”
The Cats (17-1, 6-0 Big Ten) started strong against the Irish, jumping out to big early leads in the second and third doubles spots. The Irish (18-4) made runs in the middle of both those games, but ultimately lost the doubles point. No. 28 Mosolova and Keri Robison took the win in the second spot, 8-4, and Samantha Murray and Elena Chernyakova grabbed the victory in the third slot, 8-5.
Senior Nazlie Ghazal extended the Cats’ lead to 2-0 with her quick 6-0, 6-0 win in the fifth singles spot. Ghazal was excited to get on the court against the rival Irish, who the Cats topped, 4-1, on their way to the Indoor Team Championship title in mid-February.
“I just came out swinging away,” Ghazal said. “I knew I had to have a lot of energy because Notre Dame’s such a good team, and it helped me just stay on my game.”
After freshman Stacey Lee lost in the sixth singles spot, No. 46 Murray grabbed a straight-set win in third singles. The Irish closed the gap to 3-2 with No. 36 Kristy Frilling’s upset win over No. 20 Georgia Rose in second singles.
“When we play Notre Dame, throw out the rankings,” coach Claire Pollard said. “We’ve been No. 1 and 2 in the region for so long, and I think we keep pushing each other to make each other better. I was just really pleased to get out of there with a win.”
On Sunday, NU extended its Big Ten winning streak to 70 games, coasting to a 7-0 victory over Purdue (6-10, 2-4). NU started slow but ended up sweeping the doubles matches, led by Rose and Lui’s 8-5 victory in the first spot.
The intensity picked up as the Cats won all six singles matches. After scoring an 8-6 victory in doubles, the tandem of Mosolova and Robison were both last-minute scratches in singles. Without that duo, freshmen Lee and Chernyakova picked up straight-set wins in the fifth and sixth singles spots. In all, five Cats won in straight sets.
But Pollard still saw things to improve on.
“Our doubles was lousy,” Pollard said. “There seemed to be a little bit of a hangover, living off the Notre Dame match. But singles, I thought we bounced back nicely.”
