The UCSD women’s tennis team came off its first loss of the season to defeat Division I Villanova in a decisive 8-1 victory at UCSD’s Northview Tennis Courts on March 2. The win brings the Triton’s record up to 7-1 overall.
Guardian file
“The goal of today’s match was to play some good doubles,” UCSD head coach Liz LaPlante said. “We made a couple of adjustments today due to some class conflicts with some of our own players, but we still played very well overall.”
The fairly one-sided match showcased some of UCSD’s best tennis played all season. At No. 6, UCSD freshman Katie McKee was finally given her first real test of skill and was able to aggressively outmaneuver her opponent to a win (6-4 and 6-3).
At No. 1 doubles, Tritons senior Julie Westerman and junior Jasmin Dao defeated their opponents in a quick 8-1 match, and sisters Allison and Jenna Ishii defeated their Villanova opponents, 8-4, at the No. 2 position. At No. 3, sophomore Leigh Roberts and McKee teamed up to defeat their opponents, 8-2.
As for the singles lineup, the Tritons were able to defeat Villanova pretty easily. No. 2 Dao and No. 3 Roberts were both able to blank their opponents, 6-0 and 6-0. Westerman swiftly defeated her Wildcat counterpart (6-3 and 6-2) at No. 1 and sophomore Marissa Hilker was able to pull out a quick victory (6-1 and 6-1) at No. 4 singles.
Next up, the Tritons will host main rival Cal Poly Pomona on March 6 at noon at the Northview Tennis Courts.
“The season so far has been getting us mentally prepared to play tough teams like Pomona. We know that they’ve lost a couple of top players this year from transferring and graduating, so we have a good idea of what their lineup is like,” LaPlante said. “We’ve had some tougher matches and we know that we need to work harder and stay mentally focused to win points. This Saturday we really want a decisive win.”
On Feb. 29, the Tritons headed north to play a tough University of San Francisco team, coached by one of LaPlante’s former players. This was the first real test for the Tritons, and they were handed their first loss of the season in a match where the final score (7-0) did not reflect the level of play on the courts.
“The University of San Francisco is a Division I school. They are very strong, but we were able to get a couple of close singles sets off of them,” LaPlante said. “We knew going in that this would be our first tough opponent and we should have definitely won some of the matches — but we realize that in order to win we need to play the points longer and smarter than [the way we did] against the teams that we’ve seen during the season.”
UCSD had three close, three-set matches that didn’t go its way. No. 4 singles Hilker played one of her best matches all season. Hilker split sets with her opponent, losing the first one, 6-0, and winning the second, 6-1, but in the third set, both girls played solidly and it came to a 10-8 tiebreaker for the match to end.
The highlight of the entire match was at No. 5 singles, when senior Kristina Jansen battled back after losing the first set and being down 5-2 in the second to win it 7-5 and force her opponent into a third set. Because the final team score had already been decided by then, the match came down to a super-tiebreaker instead of the third match, which Jansen lost 10-8.
“Kristina played really hard that match; even though she faced two match points, she was able to come back and rally from being down 2-5 and force that third set,” LaPlante said. “Overall, although disappointing not to win a match, it was good competition to get us ready for our more important Division II matches coming up. I’m very pleased overall with how everyone is playing, and hopefully all these tough matches will pay off over the course of the season.”
The day before, on Feb. 28, the Tritons were able to showcase their talent in an impressive win against San Francisco State University. The team did not lose a single set, and Westerman and Dao beat their opponents, 8-6, at No. 1 doubles. No. 2 doubles sophomore Tara Siddiqui and freshman Kristin Bronowicki and No. 3 doubles Roberts and McKee both defeated their opponents, 8-1.
