Under the gloomy skies looming above Happy Valley this past Friday, the Penn State women's tennis team competed in its first outdoor home match at the Sarni Tennis Center, netting its second Big Ten victory.
"That's two and two! Five-hundred all across the boards!" freshman Lindsay Downing said after the Nittany Lions (7-7, 2-2 Big Ten) beat Indiana University (8-9, 0-3 Big Ten) by the score of 5-2.
Penn State started the match off by claiming the doubles point, winning two of the three matches. The Lions' duo of Leigh Ann Merryman and Maaria Husain knocked off Hoosiers Martina Grimm and Sarah Batty 8-3 at the No. 1 doubles slot, while Sarah Spence and Lindsay Downing sealed the point for Penn State by defeating Indiana's Jessica Groth and Sophie Rychlik 8-3.
Capturing the doubles point has been a winning trend all season long for the Lions, as they have yet to lose a match when securing it.
In singles competition, senior Judy Wang made a quick exit from the court in her match by winning straight-set victories (6-3, 6-0) over Dominika Walterova to put the Lions up 2-0. Wang never fell behind her opponent in either set.
"Today I felt pretty confident in my shots," Wang said. "I kept moving my feet and playing aggressive."
Indiana was able to slow the Lions' momentum when Linda Tran opened up scoring for the Hoosiers with straight-set victories (6-1, 6-1) over Megan Marton at the No. 1 slot.
Marton felt that unfamiliarity of outdoor matches this season and the windy conditions on Friday contributed to her struggles.
"She [Tran] was controlling the momentum," Marton said. "My feet were just a step slow."
After losing Marton's point, the Lions didn't have to wait long to regain control of the match. Straight-set victories at both the No. 5 and 6 slots clinched the win for Penn State.
Spence put up the Lions' third point when she won consecutive sets (6-0, 6-4) over Indiana's Rychlik, then Downing finished off the Hoosiers by beating Groth (6-3, 6-0) at the No. 6 position.
"In the beginning of the match, I was putting a lot of balls on the court to force her to make the mistakes," Spence said.
Both Spence and Downing stressed the importance of consistency in their matches, a strategy proposed by Penn State women's tennis coach Buffy Baker.
"Buffy told me before the match to work on 'aggressive consistency,' " Downing said. "My goal was to shorten the point by coming to the net."
Though the victory was complete, Merryman claimed the fifth point for the Lions in the most intense match of the competition.
The games went back and forth with several lead changes before Merryman beat out Indiana's Batty 7-6, 6-4.
In the longest match of the day, and the only one to go to the third set, Penn State's Husain lost to Grimm (3-6, 6-4, 9-11) in a 10-point tiebreaker. Down 9-4 midway into the third set, Husain fought back to even the set 9-9. Grimm then regained her composure and finished off Husain.
Baker said that her team is working on conditioning to be able to compete in the longer points of outdoor matches. The Lions have focused on agility drills in practice and added additional sprints to their workouts.
"Going outside, you have a mental advantage if you are physically in shape," Baker said.
Baker said the conditioning will not decline in the coming weeks with six important Big Ten matchups ahead. The Lions will be back on the road this weekend when they travel to Champaign, Ill., on Saturday to face Illinois University and to West Lafayette, Ind., on Sunday to meet Purdue.
