The Ball State Cardinals suffered their first loss of the season Sunday when Michigan State came to town and beat the Cardinals 5-2. Coach Kathy Bull said that the team was scared of Michigan State.
"I'm a little frustrated that we came out a little intimidated to play our game when we started out playing doubles, and that bothers me a little bit," she said. "I want us to feel like we can swing away and do what we've been training ourselves to do. And we kind of let the emotion of the day or the match interfere with that thought process."
The Spartans (4-4) dominated the match, winning the doubles point and four of the six singles matches.
"Michigan State is a good team, and they just, they step up and hit the ball with a little more confidence than we do," Bull said "It's not a physical skill, that's a mental attitude, and we have to develop that. We have to develop a thicker mental skin, we just let teams intimidate us a little bit and that's what we've got to work on."
The Cardinals (3-1) lost all three doubles matches to the Spartans before rebounding in singles with Melissa Roach defeating Keri Thompson 6-2, 6-1.
"We had a good talk about it before singles, and we had a couple people, like Mel, who responded really well. She made it look pretty easy, to be honest. I mean, look at the scores," Bull said. "She didn't seem to let those mental demons get after her."
Katie Owans also had a doubles victory, taking care of Sarah Andrews 2-6, 6-1, 6-3. Jenny Batty fought hard for two matches before falling apart against Caroline Lay.
"Batty has played two great sets even though she's fighting for her life now," Bull said, during Batty's final set, which she lost 6-0 after staying with Lay 6-3, 5-7 in the first two sets. "Owans got off to a slow start and then rallied on the second and third sets so we kinda got back to it."
Batty had a tough task, as the final set came after the match had been decided, and both teams were standing, watching, which may have impacted her play.
Bull said she'd like her team to play with more emotion in the coming weeks.
"That's our dilemma: We need to play more emotionally in a positive way and use that on the court, and I'm going to go down there and talk to my team about it," she said. "We have a lot of potential, but we got to do a little bit more with it."
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