Women dominate Broncos, look to rematch with Buckeyes

By Chris Pettijohn     3/25/10 7:00pm

While most of Rice's student body was still in their beds last Sunday, recovering from Beer Bike the day before, the No. 44 women's tennis team had to be up and ready to face old rival Western Michigan University. After a bump in their season last week versus Wichita State University (5-8) and No. 33 University of Tulsa (12-5), the team worked on problems that showed the week before in practice and met to revisit team goals in order to focus the team for the rest of the season.

Head Coach Elizabeth Schmidt says the team bonded through the discussions.

"[We] know that all the hard work we put in all this year prepared us for situations like this, knowing when the going gets tough you're surrounded by nine teammates who want the best for each other," Schmidt said.

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The rain that had soaked students during the water balloon fight also soaked the courts at the Jake Hess Tennis Stadium, forcing the matches indoors to the Galleria for the second time this month.

Rice (9-5) came to play with renewed energy and a purpose of erasing last week's matches from their memory as they punished Western Michigan (8-8) with a 7-0 sweep.

"Our team came prepared to play, and after facing a bit of adversity, they responded to the challenge," Schmidt said.

The match began with a quick 8-2 win at the No. 1 doubles position, as No. 41 senior Julie Chao and sophomore Ana Guzman made quick work of Emily Dudzik and Jill Pastunink.

The No. 2 doubles match featured a new pairing for the Owls, with junior Jessica Jackson playing with freshman Daniella Trigo, who was playing in her first doubles match. While the new pair got off to a slow start, facing a 3-1 deficit early in the match, they quickly fixed their issues and won seven straight sets to take the match 8-3 and the doubles point for Rice.

Junior Rebekka H?nle and senior Rebecca Lin had a tough match against Maria Nivia and Yumi Matsuto, who had recently won her 100th career match for Western Michigan. Much closer than the other two doubles matches, H?nle and Lin fought to pull this match out in the end 8-7 (7-5).

Rice lost no time transferring the momentum to the singles matches, with Guzman winning her match and dropping only three games, H?nle winning her match in straight sets and dropping two games and Chao winning her match in straight sets and dropping only one game. Trigo and Lin followed, winning their matches in similar fashion.

The only singles match that was close was Guzman's match versus Matsuto. After dropping the first set, Guzman fought back and won the second set 6-4. For the third set, they played a 10-point tiebreaker, even though the overall match had already been decided in Rice's favor. Guzman easily won the final set 10-3 to complete the sweep of Western Michigan.

This match is a good benchmark through which to compare the team's i m p r o ve m e n t over last year. Last year's meeting between Rice and Western Michigan resulted in a close 4-3 match that Rice had lost, creating motivation to bounce back this time around.

Next week, the Owls will take on Ohio State University. Last year, the team fell to the Buckeyes 5-2, but Rice is looking forward to playing them again, according to Jackson, hopefully with a different conclusion.

"We are just happy and confident right now and looking forward to playing the next match," Jackson said.

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