It was a weekend of Dickensian ups and downs for the Ball State University's women's tennis team. After a complete dismantling of Dayton and Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Saturday, they were dealt a crushing 7-0 defeat at the hands of Indiana University on Sunday.
Against Saturday's opponents, the Cardinals only lost one set, and that was at No. 6 singles against Dayton. It wasn't even close against Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as they dominated the doubles events and three of the six singles matches (No. 2 Stephanie Farrar, No. 5 Haly Calderwood, and No. 6 Emma Retter) were 6-0, 6-0. The others were just as easy No. 1 Jessica Thompson won 6-3, 6-1, No. 3 Jennifer Pollack won 6-1, 6-0, and No. 4 Katie Owens won 6-1, 6-1. Coach Kathy Bull said those two matches were much easier than she was hoping for.
"Probably not exactly what we expected," Bull said. "I'm not complaining; we'll take it. I'll take some of the responsibility for it. I think we created the situation, so i think we were hoping both opponents would press us a little bit more. I don't have any control over what they do, so I'm really happy with it."
It was a solid day for all the players, but it was a big day for Calderwood. She picked up her first two victories this year in the singles department, defeat ing Dayton's Megan Gray 6-2, 6-3, and Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Elizabeth Angel 6-0, 6-0.
"Well, after the Kansas match we really started working on hitting deep balls, a little more height over the net," Calderwood said. "So I really focused on eliminating errors into the net. It helped a lot and cut down on a lot of mistakes. It was more like controlling the play, keeping it in, kind of waiting for the right moment instead of just rushing."
Sailing was not as smooth on Sunday. The 34th-ranked Hoosiers swept the Cardinals in both doubles and singles and cruised to a 7-0 victory.
"It was what we expected, but we handle the situation better than the score indicates," Bull said. "We actually had some goals that we met."
The only set won by the Cardinals was played by Katie Owens, who won the first set 7-6 (7-5), but lost the second set 6-1 and the third set in a super-tiebreaker 1-0 (10-5). Bull was impressed by her play in both singles and doubles play on Sunday.
"She really left everything out there on the court," Bull said.
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