When conference play begins in just over a week, the BG tennis team will be going in with an 11-0 record and a No. 54 national ranking in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association.
BG’s 11-0 start is the best in school history, breaking the previous record (10-0) held by the 1973-74 team.
After knowing about the record for a couple of matches now, breaking the record was on the team’s mind, according to Kelsey Jakupcin.
“We’ve been working towards breaking the record,” she said. “We finally did it in California and it was a really great feeling and then finding out about being ranked was just incredible. We were so excited for our coach because she’s never had a national ranking before. We were just thrilled.”
For a team that spent most of its spring break in California, finding out it was nationally ranked was the icing on the cake, according to coach Penny Dean.
The Falcons earned a No. 60 ranking in the ITA national rankings after defeating Cal Poly Pomona and UC San Diego over the break. They have since moved up to No. 54 and are the only team from the Mid-American Conference to be ranked in the top-75.
The Falcons also tied the school’s longest winning streak – beginning of a season or otherwise.
The record and nationally ranking is a reward for the girls, said Dean.
“I feel like it’s all them,” she said. “They’ve worked hard and have pulled out some individual matches, while giving us victories over teams that have helped us get the ranking and the record.”
The Falcons broke the school record for best start after defeating Cal Poly Pomona, 9-0.
In doubles play, BG won all three matches with the top-two tandems winning by identical 8-1 scores.
Christine Chiricosta and Jakupcin won at the top flight, while senior co-captains Jenna Nussbaum and Andrea Volle won at the second flight.
The duo of Katia Babina and Sam Kintzel rounded out the Falcons’ doubles play with at 8-3 victory at the third flight.
It was more of the same in singles as BG won five of the six matches in straight sets.
The only match to go the distance was Jakupcin’s top-flight match against Jenny Tsai. Jakupcin won the third-set tiebreaker, 10-3.
Two days earlier the Falcons defeated UC San Diego, 7-2.
BG took two of the three doubles matches to take an early 1-0 lead.
The duos of Nussbaum/Volle and Babina/Kintzel both won by identical scores of 8-1 at the second and third flights, respectively.
The tandem of Chiricosta/Jakupcin was narrowly defeated – 9-7 – in top-flight action.
Like the match against Cal Poly Pomona, the Falcons won five of the six singles matches.
The only singles win for the Tritons came in the fifth flight where Stefanie Menoff was defeated in three sets.
With the Falcons’ non-conference schedule out of the way, they can now focus on what coach Dean said is “the most important part of our season.”
All of the records, along with a national ranking, will be put on the back burner as the team is now solely focused on winning the MAC.
“We have the first part of our season under our belts,” Jakupcin said. “We already achieved our goal of breaking the school record and now our goal is focused more on winning all of our MAC matches.”
Even though the team was picked to finish sixth in the conference, Dean feels it is one of the teams to beat.
“We’ve always felt as a team that we were one of the teams to beat in the MAC for this year,” Dean said. “I think in these pre-MAC matches, we’ve caused the other teams to sit up and take notice.”
Eastern Michigan will be the first MAC team to take notice as the Falcons travel to Ypsilanti, Mich., on March 21.
Whether the team wins the MAC or not, Jakupcin said it will always have the record.
“We’re always going to be down in the books,” she said.
“Other BG tennis teams in future years are going to be like, ‘Well I guess we have to beat that 2008 tennis team and their big record.'”