TAMPA, Fla. (April 22, 2007) ? With a dramatic 4-3 win over No. 1 seed Notre Dame, (No. 2 nationally), the University of South Florida women's tennis team rallied to take four singles matches after dropping the early doubles point and claimed the first ever BIG EAST Championship for USF in any sport, Sunday afternoon at the Varsity Tennis Courts.
With the conference title, USF earns the BIG EAST automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, the seventh overall appearance for the women's team and second consecutively.
“It's a great feeling, I always thought that we were capable of winning,” said head coach Agustin Moreno. “The good thing about this is that we're together and we're really focused and we're playing like a team.”
After seeing the doubles point go Notre Dame's way, the Bulls used wins on courts one, two, five and six to rally back. Three of the four singles matches went to third sets, with USF winning each one.
Courtney Vernon captured the Bulls' first point quickly and with relative ease over the Irish's Christian Thompson at No. 2. Vernon controlled the entire match, winning 6-1, 6-1 to put USF on the board and tie the match at 1-1.
Notre Dame then pulled ahead 3-1 with wins on courts three and four. ND's Colleen Rielley upended Jessica Sweeting in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3 at No. 3, and Kelcy Tefft earned a 7-5, 6-1 victory over Liz Cruz at No. 4.
Pushed to within one match of finishing runner-up in the conference for the second year in a row, the Bulls buckled down and forced wins on the remaining courts.
Shadisha Robinson split the first two sets with Catrina Thompson on court one before putting the No. 26 ranked player in the nation away for good with a 6-1 third set win.
At No. 5, senior Gabriela Duch fought back after a 6-3 first set loss to No. 59 Cosmina Ciobanu, and claimed the last two frames 6-3 and 7-5.
With the score tied at 3-3, the deciding point came down to the No. 6 position where sophomore Iciri Rai battled ND's Katie Potts. Rai captured the first set 6-4 but then saw Potts battle back for a 6-3 second set win. In the match frame, Rai took a 4-2 lead before Potts caught up and knotted the score at 4-4. The pair traded games until Rai held a 6-5 advantage. After an injury timeout, Rai was able to break the Note Dame sophomore's serve and seal the victory with a 7-5 third set win.
“It was completely dramatic,” said Moreno of the match. “We lost a hard doubles point, but Courtney got our first point right away and I think that got everybody up and all the three-set matches just went our way.”
In claiming the title over No. 2 Notre Dame, the Bulls earned their fifth win over a ranked opponent this season and finished the year 5-0 in BIG EAST play.
Sunday's win is the 11th overall conference title for the USF women's tennis team. The squad earned four Sun Belt championships from 1984-1991, four straight Metro Conference titles from 1992-1995 and two C-USA crowns from 1996-2005.
BIG EAST Championships - No. 2 USF 4, No. 1 Notre Dame 3
Doubles
1) Thompson/Thompson (ND) def. Duch/Sweeting (USF) 8-4
2) Tefft/Buck (ND) tied Vernon/Robinson (USF) 7-7 DNF
3) Ciobanu/Krisik (ND) def. Cruz/Rai (USF) 8-4
Singles:
1) Shadisha Robinson (USF) def. Catrina Thompson (ND) 6-3, 4-6, 6-1
2) Courtney Vernon (USF) def. Christian Thompson (ND) 6-1, 6-1
3) Colleen Rielley (ND) def. Jessica Sweeting (USF) 6-1, 6-3
4) Kelcy Tefft (ND) def. Liz Cruz (USF) 7-5, 6-1
5) Gabriela Duch (USF) def. Cosmina Ciobanu (ND) 3-6, 6-3, 7-5
6) Iciri Rai (USF) def. Katie Potts (ND) 6-4, 3-6, 7-5
Order of finish:
Doubles: 3,1
Singles: 2,3,4,1,5,6
