The Hoosiers have played 13 of their 18 home matches indoors this season, but the weather this weekend was nice enough to allow IU women’s tennis to play its fourth and fifth outdoor matches of the year against Illinois and Northwestern this past weekend.
The Hoosiers’ faced the Fighting Illini , who came in with a 9-10 overall record and a 3-2 conference record.
Senior Kim Schmider and sophomore Madison Appel, the nationally-ranked No. 60 doubles pair won their match. But IU’s Nos. 2 and 3 doubles teams lost, and Illinois was able to gain a 1-0 advantage in the match.
From there it was domination from the Illini who cruised to a 6-1 victory against the Hoosiers. Appel was the only player to win her singles match at the No. 1 position, 6-1, 7-5.
IU then got a day off before playing its final home match of the season Sunday against Northwestern.
Like Illinois, Northwestern was able to get the doubles point. Four out of the six singles matches went into a third set, but unfortunately for the Hoosiers, the Wildcats capitalized on their opportunities to gain a 7-0 victory. Narrow losses at positions 1, 2, 5 and 6 handed the Hoosiers the defeat.
“It’s a handful of points here and there that are costing us these matches,” IU Coach Ramiro Azcui said. “I think we need to stay more mentally tough. When things get a little tough we tend to not execute the way we need to.”
Azcui said those types of things will be what he talks to the team about this week in practice.
Coming into this weekend, the Hoosiers were ninth in the Big Ten standings, and only the top 10 teams in the conference make the Big Ten Tournament.
Three of IU’s four remaining matches are against teams — Wisconsin, Minnesota and Penn State — that are below them in the standings.
The Hoosiers are now 11-11 on the season, and their conference record dropped to 2-4. In order to secure a spot in the tournament Azcui said his team needs to focus on just one match at a time.
“If we don’t take care of the next match ahead of us I think we can get into trouble,” Azcui said. “We know how important every match is and we are going to treat it as is.”
The next match up for the Hoosiers will be against the 4-12 Wisconsin Badgers, who are 0-7 in the conference. The match will be played in Madison, Wisconsin.
