IU defeats Louisville in NCAAs, take on Kentucky today

As yet another commanding early lead against arch-rival Louisville threatened to vanish, this time on the grandest stage yet, the Hoosiers received a shot in the arm from one of the unlikeliest of sources—their least experienced netter.

After seizing an initial 3-0 lead, IU struggled to find the crucial point until sophomore Dimitrije Tasic completed a huge second set comeback and clinched IU’s 4-2 defeat of the Cardinals in Friday afternoon’s opening round NCAA encounter in Lexington, Ky.    

For IU Head Coach Bloemendaal and the seniors on the Hoosier squad, none of whom had ever recorded a victory against Louisville or advanced in the NCAA Tournament, the triumph was especially cathartic.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Bloemendaal said. “Everybody’s pretty pumped about the win—Louisville was a monkey on our back. The seniors had experienced four years of them getting the better of us in different ways and us scratching our heads.  To win the way Dima [Tasic] came back and won, they’re going to get excited about it, but more in a momentum sort of way.  It’s just like, ‘Finally, we’ve made a separation with this team.’  And if anything, we had a chance to completely dominate them; Louisville did a heck of a job to keep fighting.”

Before Tasic or any of his cream and crimson-clad comrades suited up in singles action, IU captured the doubles point through a pair of victorious results.  Josh MacTaggart and Alastair Barnes cruised to an 8-3 win against the Cards’ Sebastian Stiefelmeyer and Robert Hall at No. 2, setting the stage for seniors Stephen Vogl and Will Kendall to seize the advantage heading into singles play with a late-charging 8-4 dismissal of Adam Donaldson and Michael Lippens at No. 3.

The Hoosiers appeared to maintain the momentum in the majority of the sextet of individual battles that ensued; to lead off singles play, Isade Juneau and Vogl registered straight set victories at No. 1 and No. 4 against Andrew Carter and Michael Lippens, respectively, earning IU a 3-0 advantage.  

However, the certainty of the match’s outcome became murkier as it progressed.  At Nos. 3 and 5, seniors Jeremy Langer and Kendall fell in straight sets within moments of one another, closing the lead to a much less assured 3-2 mark.

With MacTaggart trading barbs (and sets) with Stiefelmeyer at No. 2 and Tasic floundering and down 5-1 in the second stanza opposite Luis Elizondo at No. 6, the prospect of another NCAA exit and defeat to the Cardinals suddenly seemed a possibility for IU.

However, the Serbian sophomore took five of the last six games from Elizondo and then prevailing in an ultra-tense 8-6 second set tiebreak, finally ending years of futility against Louisville.

“To come through in that situation was so tough,” Bloemendaal said of Tasic. “The crowd was outrageous today.  The Louisville people weren’t your typical tennis crowd—they were cheering dirty a little bit, cheering between points, hanging over the fence.  We had a lot of Indiana people there, too, though, and it really was a total team effort.  To do that well despite not having great days from two of our seniors makes a big statement.”

The breakthrough, which also ended a twelve-year drought of NCAA Tournament victories for the program, not only set the program mark for single-season wins, but also vaulted the Hoosiers (24-9. 7-4) into the second round for the first time since IU defeated Kentucky in the opening round in 2000.  

Coincidentally, the No. 26 Hoosiers will face the Wildcats, who are ranked sixth in the nation, in today’s second round battle scheduled for 2 p.m.

“The Louisville match is one that propels us to get ready for Kentucky,” Bloemendaal said.  “We needed something to boost us up to play a top 10 team.  Kentucky will be ready, but so will we.”

Though the Wildcats, who downed the Hoosiers 7-0 earlier this season, will likely be the beneficiaries of vociferous home support as the rivals vie for a berth in next week’s Sweet 16 in Athens, Ga., Bloemendaal said he has confidence in his team’s chances to extend its season at least one more match, especially after a word of encouragement from the head coach of Radford, who lost to Kentucky 4-0 later Friday.

“Radford’s coach sent a really good message to our team—he told them that a win [against Kentucky] is attainable,” Bloemendaal said.  “Even though Kentucky won fairly easily, they were fairly unimpressive.  We’ve played this team before, and I think we’re pretty good at recognizing areas in teams that we can beat.  The seniors have been talking to me and most people around them about how the ‘paradigm has switched’ within the team.  If you’re really going to switch the paradigm, you’ve got to hit milestones; the Sweet 16 is a big one to hit.  I don’t think they came to this tournament just to beat Louisville.”