The BG tennis team looked unstoppable at the Penn State Fall Classic last weekend–until they faced the host Lady Lions.
After the Falcons swept Akron 7-0 in singles matches, Penn State stepped onto the court and never lost, sweeping both BG and Akron in singles and doubles matches in the two-day, three-team event. The Falcons also swept Akron 3-0 in doubles competition on Friday.
Despite losing every match against Penn State, BG head coach Penny Dean said she was happy with the way her team played against a good Big Ten opponent.
“Penn State is strong and we played ’em tough,” Dean said. “A lot of (matches) we lost in three sets and I thought everyone played well against them so the results didn’t matter.”
Susie Shoenberger, who won 6-1, 6-0 against Akron’s Courtney Brenkus in the #1 flight, lost in three sets against Penn State’s #1 player Sasha Abraham 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.
In the #2 flight, Ashley Jakupcin defeated Akron’s Amy Sherlock 6-3, 6-2 but also lost in three sets to Penn State’s Maaria Husain 6-2, 6-7, 6-3. Jenna Nussbaum and Laura Kokinda also lost in three sets to the Lady Lions at the #4, and #8 flights respectively.
“Penn State was a tough team, probably the toughest that we’ll face this year,” Jakupcin said. “The matches were all really close but they got some key points here and there.”
Shoenberger said the potential was there to win a lot of the matches against the Lady Lions.
“They were definitely beatable,” Shoenberger said. “We were right there, we had some chances but we just couldn’t finish.”
Fatigue also may have been a factor for the Falcons. After playing Akron, the Falcons stayed on the court against Penn State.
“Penn State came on and they were fresh so that could have been the difference,” Dean said.
Despite playing well against both Akron and Penn State, the Falcons have some minor improvements to work on for the spring season in January. Dean said maintaining a consistent performance and not allowing opponents any easy points is needed for the team to gain an extra advantage against other teams.
“For the most part we’re really competing well,” Dean said. “We’ll go three games and just play every opponent really tough and then in that fourth game we’ll give away easily a couple of points. If you’re going to compete for the MAC and win matches against good teams you can’t let that happen.”
The Falcons have plenty of time off until their next competition. They face Wright State on Saturday Jan. 22, 2005 at Shadow Valley in Toledo.
