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Season-starting road trip presents problems for Terriers

While Spring Break revelers enjoyed the rising mercury in southern Florida, the Boston University women’s tennis team traveled to the Sunshine State to fight three tough matches in six days. Coming home with a 1-2 record against top schools has lead to high anticipation for Saturday’s meet against cross-town rival Harvard University.

Clashes against James Madison University, Florida International University and the University of Virginia dotted the scheduled for the first week of March, with each match set for the warm Florida air.

After Boston University pulled a 5-2 victory away from James Madison, things went downhill as BU was shut out against Florida International 7-0, and came up short to Virginia, 5-2. A team receives a point for winning two out of the three doubles matches, and then one point for each of the six singles matches.

“The match against James Madison was a great first match for us to play,” said BU coach Lesley Sheehan. “Coming out of bad weather, we were both very even.”

The three doubles tandems for BU continued to dominate against James Madison, as all three pairs won. BU entered the meet with a 13-2 record in doubles play, which has been a reason for the quick 3-1 start to the spring season. Senior Carrie Rose and junior Christina Causway played in the No. 1 position and beat Sherri Puppo and Lauren Dalton from James Madison.

“That was huge win for us,” Sheehan said. “They are one of the top five teams in our region and one of the top 25 teams nationally.”

The freshmen team of Lindsey Dynof and Elena deMendoza won their match 8-3, while senior Hsiao Ning Ham and sophomore Alana Marcu won 8-6. Causway, Dynoff, Marcu and freshman Hannah Bartell won in singles matches.

Three days later against Florida International University was a completely different story. Boston University lost every match in route to a 7-0 shellacking. The doubles teams that had preformed so well against James Madison lost 8-1, 8-2, 8-1. BU lost every singles match to Florida International who played Boston University after coming off a win over the University of Miami. The Hurricanes are consistently nationally ranked and are a powerhouse on the East Coast.

“We had no excuses,” remarked Sheehan of the loss. “They really took it to us and they were definitely the much better team.”

The Terriers rounded out their south Florida stay with a 5-2 loss to the University of Virginia. Virginia won the doubles point with two wins out of three matches. The No. 1 doubles team of Rose and Causway won 8-4, but Dynof and deMendoza and Ham and Marcu lost 8-5, 8-5, respectively. Causway won her singles match 7-6, 6-3, and Rose won when her opponent retired while losing 7-5. However, seeds 3-6 all lost for BU, winning only one set combined.

There’s no reason to fret though, according to Sheehan. “We scheduled hard teams because of how good they were. The pressure is on the other team to beat us. We gave UVA a very good match.”

She also praised the hardworking doubles teams saying that, “doubles has been strong, and that one point in every meet is key. We will probably keep the same teams going into the Harvard match.”

Although heading back to the Hub with one win and two losses is not overly impressive, Sheehan made it clear she is proud of her team which faces tennis juggernaut Harvard University this Saturday. The Ivy League schedule continues with a match against Brown University on March 20.

“After playing three very tough teams over the break, I think they feel like they are ready to play Harvard,” Sheehan said. “We should have high confidence after playing tough teams.”

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