The UCSD women’s tennis team advanced to the quarterfinals of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Women’s Tennis Championships before falling to Barry University 5-1 on Friday afternoon.
The Tritons advanced to the tournament after a 22-3 regular season in which they took home the California Collegiate Athletic Association regular-season title.
UCSD opened the competition with a 5-2 victory against Northwood University of Michigan in the first round of the 16-team championship.
The Tritons opened the match by winning two of the three doubles contests. Lyndsey Tadlock and Julie Westerman clawed out a 9-7 victory in No. 1 doubles action, while Ashley O’Neil and Mary Hung were able to pull down an 8-5 victory at No. 2. Kristina Jansen and Jasmin Dao dropped their No. 3 match at 3-8.
Going into singles, the Tritons needed to pick up three victories, and they accomplished that with ease. Westerman continued her undefeated singles season with a 6-1, 7-5 victory at No. 6. Jansen picked up the victory at No. 5 (6-1, 7-5) and O’Neil ran away with a 6-2, 6-3 victory at No. 2 to give UCSD the victory. Jasmin Dao fell at No. 1 (6-0, 6-0) to push the final score to 5-2. The other two matches were left unfinished, but Tadlock was only two games from taking her singles match, and Hung was down a set and even 3-3 in the second.
With the victory, the Tritons advanced to the quarterfinals to take on Barry University, which defeated Bloomsburg College of Pennsylvania 5-0 in the first round. UCSD faced Barry earlier in the year, ending up on the wrong end of a 6-3 semifinal in the Xenia Anastasiadou Tournament on April 6.
Barry entered the tournament as the third seed, but the unseeded Tritons were able to give the favorite a scare.
Earlier in the season, Barry rode three doubles wins to the easy team victory, but UCSD nearly reversed those fortunes in their second meeting.
O’Neil and Hung were able to knock off Gizella Turbok and Bojana Miladinovic, the No. 22 doubles team in the nation, 8-6. Jansen and Dao nearly took their match against Ewa Kleczek and Valeria Papandrea, losing a tiebreaker 7-5 after finishing the match 8-8. Tadlock and Westerman were overpowered at No. 1 doubles against the sixth-ranked doubles tandem of Victoria Courmes and Maria Lopez.
Down 2-1, the Tritons knew they had to win four of the singles matches, one of which must be over one of Barry’s three nationally ranked players. In the end, Barry’s strength on the top of its lineup was too much for UCSD.
No. 5 Courmes knocked off Dao (3-6, 1-6) at No. 1 singles. Dao finished the season with an 8-17 record in her first collegiate season, though her play dramatically improved over the year.
The nation’s 17th-ranked Turbock had few problems with O’Neil, picking up the win 3-6, 1-6 at No. 2 singles. O’Neil finished her singles season with a 15-10 record.
Tadlock also dropped her match against 44th-ranked Lopez 4-6, 1-6, but the loss did little to diminish the lone senior’s record of 19-5.
With victory assured, the other three matches were suspended, though the UCSD players had great chances to win all three. Hung was down a set but had rallied to a 3-1 lead in the second before suspension. Hung finished the season with a 20-2 record, mostly at No. 4 singles.
Jansen’s match with Kleczek was suspended with Jansen needing only one more game to win. Jansen lost only one match this season, finishing with an impressive 25-1 singles record.
Westerman swept her first set 6-0, but was down 2-5 in the second before suspension. She finished the season undefeated with 26 victories.
Though the score would indicate otherwise, the Tritons’ ability to keep the match close against a much stronger Barry squad bodes well for the future of a team that usually played one senior, four sophomores and a freshman.
Next season, UCSD will look to continue its 16-year streak of NCAA tournament appearances, but without the services of Tadlock, who will graduate with one second-place and two fifth-place finishes in her NCAA tournament career.
