The Hoosiers won their last two games, one on the road at Wisconsin 4-3 and another at home against Minnesota 6-1.
These two games decided if IU would receive a bye to the Big Ten tournament in Evanston, Ill., this upcoming week.
After losing the doubles point to the Badgers on Friday, the Hoosiers took the lead in their singles play. Both teams were neck and neck for the win in each singles game.
The deciding game for who would take home the win Friday was senior Alicia Kauss against Wisconsin’s Maria Avgerinos. Kauss shut down the Badgers by taking six of the seven wins in her singles game.
“I think when we were at Wisconsin we had to face a lot of adversity since it was their senior day too, so they had a lot of fans,” senior Carolyn Chupa said. “Playing outside there was definitely a change-up.”
The Hoosiers then started off strong, taking the doubles point against the Gophers and keeping the momentum up by winning five of their six singles games.
“We definitely had the advantage when we played against Minnesota here because home court advantage,” Chupa said. “The problem with Minnesota was we had to focus on the match instead of it being senior day.”
The Hoosiers finished off the weekend by sending the Gophers home with a loss.
“We played well as a team up and down the lineup,” IU Coach Lin Loring said. “Winning the doubles point today was big because they’re a very good team in the doubles. They’ve won a lot of doubles points, whereas we’ve lost, so winning the doubles point gave us a lot of momentum.”
Since it was the Hoosiers’ senior weekend, there was a lot of pressure for IU to win these two matches.
“I think the seniors wanted to win for the seniors and the underclassmen wanted to win for the seniors,” Loring said. “So a lot of the times, everyone plays really well or everyone’s trying so hard they play really bad. I didn’t know what to expect today, and fortunately we played really well today, especially in the doubles.”
After winning its past four games, IU received a No. 5 seed in this week’s Big Ten Tournament. The Hoosiers won’t have a lot of practice time before traveling to the tournament this week.
“Well, we’ll probably only have one day of practice Tuesday, and then we’ll probably leave Wednesday depending on what time our match is,” Loring said. “We may practice here Tuesday or Wednesday, but it’s too late to do anything new. We’ll just be doing what we’ve always done.”
IU will go up against Penn State at 11 a.m. on Friday in Evanston.
“This should give us a bye in the first round, and that’s big,” Loring said. “I think we’re going to be playing Penn State, who we lost to 4-3 at Penn State, so were really excited to get to play them again in a neutral court. So it should be really good.”
The team is equally excited and sore to be playing in the tournament this week.
“We’re probably going to need an ice bath or two,” Chupa said.
