Double trouble for Notre Dame in weekend losses
By COLIN BOYLAN
Sports Writer
While the formula for success for the Notre Dame women's tennis team is by no means set in stone, a certain trend seems to be emerging five matches into the spring season.
When the team wins the doubles point, they win the match. When they lose the doubles point, the results are much less desirable.
A pair of losses last weekend to opponents Kentucky and Indiana dropped the Irish to 3-2 on the season and will likely drop the team from their 13th spot in the national rankings. In both matches, losing the closely contested doubles point set a negative tone for the rest of the competition.
"Even though its only one point, I think the doubles matches have a lot of significance," said head coach Jay Louderback. "We didn't play very well and that carried over to our singles."
Doubles certainly set the tone for the Irish in their 4-3 Saturday loss to Kentucky. After splitting the first two matches, the Irish tandem of Lindsey Green and Becky Varnum fell just short in their effort to defeat Kentucky's seventh ranked doubles team of Carolina Mayorga and Sarah Witten, losing 8-6.
Kentucky followed by rattling off the first three singles victories to clinch the match.
Nina Vaughan, Alicia Salas and Katie Cunha rallied with three consecutive wins of their own to stage and impressive comeback, but it was a case of too little, too late.
On Sunday, the match seemed to follow a similar script in the team's 5-2 loss to 40th ranked Indiana.
The Irish suffered a close doubles loss, but actually gained a brief upper hand when Salas and Sarah Jane Connelly quickly disposed of their opponents to give the team a 2-1 lead. Salas' 6-1, 6-0 victory was particularly impressive conclusion to a weekend in which she finished 3-1 — the only Irish player to have a winning record.
"I was disappointed that we didn't pull through in doubles, so I wanted to start out as strong as I could in singles," she said.
However, the momentum was halted when Green's second set rally against Indiana's Karie Schlukebir fell short in a tie-breaker and Vaughan lost a close match to Linda Tran 7-5, 6-4. Indiana then took the final two singles matches and the victory.
Toward the end of Sunday's competition, the Irish seemed to be worn down by Indiana's "We've had a couple of tough matches over the past week, but I don't think that was a big issue," said Salas. "We played well against Kentucky, but we just didn't come out with as much intensity against Indiana."
Louderback agreed with that assessment.
"That's just the way the season goes," he said of the team's five matches during the past week. "We need to be ready to play out there."
Despite the relatively disappointing weekend, Louderback says he has no immediate plans to shuffle the lineup.
"I'm going to see how everyone does in the National Indoors this week before I make a decision like that."
Next week, the Irish will travel to Madison, Wisconsin for the USTA/ITA National Team Indoor Championship.
All Sports Stories for Monday, February 4, 2002
