On Friday night in Annapolis, Marylandthe Hoosiers got off to a quick start winning the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles matches to claim a 1-0 lead over the United States Naval Academy.
But Navy answered back, winning three straight singles matches to take a 3-1 lead over IU.The Hoosiers answered with singles wins from senior Michelle McKamey and junior Jelly Bozovic to tie the match 3-3. IU found itself in its first true down-to-the-wire match.
The results for the IU women’s tennis team have been full of both blowout wins and losses so far this season. Going into last weekend, all of IU’s matches had been decided by two or more points.
The match came down to senior Annabelle Andrinopoulos against Navy’s sophomore Kacey Moore on the No. 2 singles court. After splitting the first two sets, Andrinopoulos proved clutch and secured the win for IU in set three, winning 6-3. In its first match that came down to the final court, the Hoosiers earned a victory away from its home court.
A Sunday doubleheader against the University of Tennessee and Eastern Michigan University rounded out the weekend for IU. Sunday morning IU lost to Tennessee 4-0 but responded with a 7-0 victory over Eastern Michigan.
The Hoosiers struggled to build any sort of momentum against the Volunteers Sunday morning. The only unfinished match in favor of IU was McKamey’s, who led Tennessee’s junior Tenika McGiffin 3-1 in set two after winning set one. The rest of the matches either favored Tennessee or were won by Tennessee.
However, IU bounced back in its afternoon match against Eastern Michigan. Across the board, IU won five sets that finished 6-0 and four that finished 6-2. Senior Caitlin Bernard won the first singles point for the Hoosiers after losing her two previous singles matches.
Now at 5-3 on the season, IU only has four more nonconference matches remaining before it travels to play Northwestern on Feb. 28. Next weekend, the Hoosiers will travel to play Cornell University at 11 a.m. Saturday and Yale University at 11 a.m. Sunday.
