Senior Georgia Rose defeated Rigini Archaya in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 to improve to 19-9 in singles play this season. The Cats played their second match outside all year but adjusted to top William & Mary, 6-1. Ray Whitehouse/The Daily Northwestern file photo
A move outside and a little gamesmanship couldn’t stop No. 1 Northwestern from downing another ranked opponent.
NU (18-1, 6-0 Big Ten) picked up a 6-1 win over No. 55 William & Mary (8-11) in Williamsburg, Va., on Thursday for its 10th straight win.
“It wasn’t a day where we played fantastic,” said assistant coach Jackie Holden, who is leading the Cats on their current road trip. “But we got the job done. We played very solid and very disciplined. There was a little bit of gamesmanship with a lot of medical timeouts by the opposition, but the girls handled it well.”
The match was only the Wildcats’ second match outdoors this season, but the team had little difficulty making the adjustment.
NU picked up the doubles point behind strong play in the second and third doubles spots. Elena Chernyakova and Samantha Murray were first off the court with an 8-3 win in the third slot, while No. 28 Maria Mosolova and Keri Robison followed soon after with an 8-3 win of their own.
The only loss in doubles play came in the first spot, where No. 14 Georgia Rose and Lauren Lui fell 8-5 to No. 48 Katarina Zoricic and Ragini Acharya.
After the two teams battled back-and-forth to a 5-5 tie, Zoricic and Acharya used strong serving to take the match’s final three points.
The loss was the NU duo’s fourth in their last five matches, but the tandem hasn’t lost any confidence.
“Doubles was definitely tough,” Rose said. “The girls that we played served really well, and we had a couple of loose service games in the middle of the match that we couldn’t really recover from. But I think overall, we’re playing really good doubles. We just have to start executing a little more.”
NU picked up wins in all but one of the five singles matches contested. The Tribe defaulted the sixth slot to the Cats because they only had five singles players.At first singles, No. 2 Mosolova grabbed an easy 6-2, 6-0 win to stretch the NU lead to 3-0.
The biggest challenge for Mosolova was adjusting her game to the conditions outdoors after a stretch of indoor play.
“When you are playing outdoors, the conditions aren’t perfect,” she said. “You have the sun, you have the wind, and we had a little bit of both today. I had to work on not paying attention to that. But outdoors, you also get a chance to get to more balls because the courts are not that fast. That works well for me because I like running, I like getting to the balls. That’s kind of my game style.”
No. 20 Rose, No. 119 Lui and Robison also picked up straight-set wins for NU. The only loss in singles play came in the third slot, where No. 46 Samantha Murray fell 6-1, 6-2.
Even though the Tribe didn’t challenge the Cats’ winning streak, the match gave NU an opportunity to prepare for the Big Ten Championships and NCAA Championships, which are both played outdoors.
“This was a good test for us,” Rose said. “We’ve been playing indoors a little bit lately, and then to come out here after one (outdoor) practice and beat a ranked team, I thought was really good.”
