A day after needing a win from one of its freshmen to pull off an upset, No. 48 Northwestern relied on its sole graduate student to avoid getting upset.
Graduate student Alexander Thams battled back from a first set loss to position himself to win his match at No. 2 singles against Iowa’s Reinoud Haal and clinch the win for NU. With the team and fans cheering after each point, Thams had a key break point to go up 5-3 in the third set, setting up the win in the next game.
“That’s the Cinderella story, I guess,” Thams said. “That was possibly the best match of my life in terms of how happy I am. This is my last match (at home), and to end it this way is unbelievable.”
In their final home matches of the season, the Wildcats (17-6, 5-3 Big Ten) knocked off No. 33 Minnesota (16-6, 5-3) on Saturday and then No. 58 Iowa (11-7, 3-5) on Sunday. Both matches came down to one singles match to clinch the 4-3 victories.
Against the Golden Gophers, freshman Joshua Graves was the last on the court with the fate of the team in his hands. He fell behind early in the third set before winning five straight games, taking the match for NU.
“I’ve been in a couple clinching match positions,” Graves said. “This one felt different – we were playing Minnesota, a higher-ranked team. I felt a lot of pressure, but I told myself I just had to go for it, I had to take it from the guy, and it worked.”
The drama continued against the Hawkeyes on Sunday. The Cats dug themselves in a hole early by dropping the doubles point. Moreover, freshman Tobias Reitz, who usually plays No. 3 singles, was held out of the match because of nagging injuries, causing the rest of the team to move up a singles spot.
The two conference wins extend the Cats’ conference winning streak to four games, and they have beaten three ranked opponents in a row. NU is now guaranteed to reach its goal of a .500 Big Ten record, which is a huge turnaround from last year’s winless conference record.
With two Big Ten foes remaining and building confidence each week, coach Arvid Swan said the team is trying to play its best at the most important time of the season.
“We’re fighting hard and we’re competing hard,” Swan said. “We’re trying to peak toward the end of the season. The big thing we have going for us is we’re playing complete matches in doubles and singles. Our team is supporting each other really well right now.”
The win against Iowa marked the first time this season NU has lost the doubles point and still won the match. The team knew it would be tough to win, but had confidence in each other to get the job done.
“The way our team is built, the doubles point is huge,” Graves said. “There haven’t been that many times when we’ve won four out of six singles matches. We almost always win three out of six. So definitely going into the singles there was more pressure on us.”
The road does not ease up, as the final two opponents for the Cats are No. 3 Ohio State and No. 61 Penn State. However, after seeing multiple players step up to clinch a match, the team is playing better by feeding off each other.
“I have a ton of confidence in all my teammates,” Graves said. “The training we did in the fall and the winter gets us ready to be in (a match-clinching) position. I think once we started winning these 4-3s, you feel more confidence as an individual also in that position.”
