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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

sports

Women's tennis caps off second of three fall season tournaments

Although IU hadn’t competed in more than a month, the Hoosiers held their own on the courts this weekend.

IU competed in two separate regional tournaments. Six of the nine players stayed in Bloomington for the IU Regional, while the remaining three traveled to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Ohio Valley Regional.

Sophomore Caitlin Bernard returned after missing most of last year due to an ACL tear and made it to the finals in flight two of the singles competition in Bloomington. Bernard was seeded fourth and in the second round knocked off Tennessee’s No. 1 Johanna Silva to advance to the finals against No. 2 Bess Waldram from Notre Dame.

Bernard fell to Waldram in a tiebreaker, 0-6, 6-3, 11-13.

“It was a big confidence booster to do as well as I did this weekend,” Bernard said. “Playing a lot of matches really helped me feel strong in my knee.”

Freshmen Emma Love and Pauline Jahren scored a doubles victory against second-seeded Notre Dame’s doubles team 8-3 in the first round. Freshman Anna McCoy won two of her three singles matches in draw five of the round robin.

“This was just a matter of trying to get the freshmen to play a lot of matches and for them work on what we work on practice,” IU Coach Lin Loring said.

Seniors Paula Gutierrez and Kim Schmider and sophomore Madison Appel represented the Hoosiers in the ITA Ohio Valley Regional. All three had their go in the singles competition, and Schmider and Appel also teamed up to play doubles.

Gutierrez was seeded fifth but lost in the first round to Carmen Blanca from Ball State 7-5, 4-6, 3-6. In the singles consolation matches, however, Gutierrez got a taste of victory as she defeated Vanderbilt’s Peyton Robinette 6-2, 6-0 and Lipscomb’s Thabile Tshatedi 6-4, 6-1.

Schmider and Appel had their fair share of singles success, but where they thrived was in their doubles matches. Although unseeded, the pair made it to the semifinals before falling to the second-seeded tandem from Vanderbilt 2-6, 6-7(4). The duo in red beat the likes of Middle Tennessee, University of Tennessee at Martin and Louisville on their road to the semifinals.

After not playing doubles together last season, this will be the first year the sophomore-senior combo will take to the courts.

“We are just playing how we do in practice, and we always knew we were pretty good together, but seeing the results on how we compare to some of the better teams in the country was a big confidence booster,” Appel said.

With both these regionals in the books the Hoosiers have now completed their second of three fall season tournaments. The third and final one will be the Western Michigan University Super Challenge on Nov. 4 in Kalamazoo, 
Michigan.

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