The Ohio State women’s tennis team (13-12, 3-6 Big Ten) hit the road during the weekend to conclude its regular season and came up empty against Wisconsin and No. 11 Northwestern.
The Saturday-afternoon match against Wisconsin (5-17, 2-8 Big Ten) served as the best chance for an OSU victory, as the Badgers entered the match in a tie for last place in the Big Ten. OSU was unable to capitalize on the weak Wisconsin squad. The Badgers swept all three doubles matches to claim the first point of the match. Juniors Ciara Finucane and Kristin Messmer were the only team who kept the match close, dropping an 8-6 decision to sophomore Nicole Beck and freshman Erin Jobe.
“Wisconsin’s No. 1 player (junior Caitlin Burke) came back after missing nearly the entire season due to injury,” senior Emily Howard said. “They’ve had a rough year, but getting their best player back for the first time against us definitely boosted them as a team.”
Following the doubles debacle, the Buckeyes were able to regroup and take the first two singles matches in straight sets to take a 2-1 lead. Finucane defeated Beck, 6-0, 4-0 (retired) and sophomore Sonia Ruzimovsky claimed a 6-2, 6-2 victory against junior Kaylan Caiati to set the Buckeyes on a promising road. Unfortunately the good play would not last, as the Badgers went on to sweep the final four matches and take a 5-2 victory, notching just their second victory in Big Ten play this season. Both Messmer and freshman Julie Blackmore battled to three sets in their matches but came up empty, with Messmer losing 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 and Blackmore dropped a heartbreaker at No. 3 to sophomore Chelsea Nusslock 3-6, 6-2, 7-6.
“Wisconsin was definitely a match we should have won,” Finucane said. “It is really important for us to get the doubles point against a team like them to give us confidence going into singles and our lack of ability to do that really set us back. Hopefully we can learn from this and improve on it for the Big Ten tournament coming up.”
Following the disappointing start to the weekend, the trip did not get any easier for the Buckeyes when they traveled to the Combe Tennis Center in Evanston, Ill. to play the powerhouse of the Big Ten, the Northwestern Wildcats (17-4, 10-0 Big Ten). Northwestern entered the match boasting an unblemished 9-0 record in conference play and had a lineup that contained three players ranked in the top 50 in singles and the No. 11 doubles team in the country.
When it came down to it, the Buckeyes were simply no match for the high-powered Wildcats, as they were swept in both the doubles and the singles portions of the match.
The doubles team of sophomore Caitlin O’Keefe and freshman Angela DiPastina gave the No. 11 team of junior Alexis Prousis and senior Cristelle Grier all they could handle before bowing out 8-5 at the No. 1 spot. Ruzimovsky and Blackmore also fell by an 8-5 score.
Blackmore was one of the lone bright spots in singles, as she pushed Prousis to a third set before her defeat. DiPastina also fell in three sets to freshman Nazlie Ghazal.
“I thought we competed really well against Northwestern,” DiPastina said. “They obviously have a lot of talent this year, like they do every year, and I don’t think the score actually justifies how close some of the matches actually (were).”
The Buckeyes move to the Big Ten tournament as the No. 7 seed. They will face off against No. 10 Illinois in the first round on Thursday at the University of Illinois.
“I’m really excited to get to my first Big Ten Tournament,” DiPastina said. “This gives us a chance to match up against some of the teams we lost to earlier in the season and it’s a great opportunity to get some revenge on them.”
OSU will need to win the tournament to lock up the conference’s automatic birth to the NCAA tournament to have any chance of prolonging its season.
