Picture it: ninety minutes into the match, your team has lost its first two matches and is down a set on the three other courts. It looks like a formula for defeat, doesn't it? It had Dartmouth coach Chris Kerr shaking her head. But the women's tennis team showed its mettle and refused to fold, coming back to sweep the rest of its matches and stun Boston College, 5-2. All this against a top team which had beaten them, 5-3, just a few days earlier.
The spirit of the win was epitomized by Allison Taff '00, who fought back from a seemingly insurmountable triple-match point (2-5, 0-40) in the third set to win 3-6, 6-3, 7-5. Teetering on the edge in the eighth game, Taff saved four match points before winning it and breaking the will of her opponent.
"Even though I was down, I didn't feel like I was out of it," Taff said. "And at around 5-4 you start to feel the momentum shift."
When the momentum shifted, things began to snowball on BC. Michelle Bray '00 and Rebecca Dirksen '00 won their matches in third-set tiebreakers and Jenny Lange '00 ran away with her match, 6-3, 6-3, before Dirksen and Taff delivered the knockout blow with an 8-2 defeat of BC's first doubles team.
"I had lost a three-setter to [the same] opponent a few weeks ago and it was tight in the third set. But I came out of that match feeling good and I said to myself 'I'll beat her next time,", Taff said.
Bray kept Dartmouth rolling with her tough 1-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4) comeback win and Dirksen also won a tight match, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) behind non-stop intensity and mental toughness. "Although I lost the first set, it didn't bother me that much. I felt like if I could get my game back, I could win," Dirksen said. "And I love tiebreakers."
The win was a satisfying one for Dartmouth after having lost to BC in the ITA Regionals on Friday. However, the Big Green had sensed they had a good shot at beating BC. In the earlier match, three of Dartmouth's top five singles players had won and its first doubles team was on the verge of victory when the match ended. So Dartmouth smelled blood in the rematch.
Interestingly, in this match, BC's coach flipped its No. 1 and No. 2 players and also its No. 3 and No. 4 players from last Friday in an effort to match up better against the Big Green. The strategy backfired as Dartmouth ended up winning at the top three positions as opposed to just No. 1 and No. 3 in the earlier match.
The victory also solidifies Dartmouth's status as an East contender. Dartmouth had finished 7th out of 16 teams in the ITA regionals, which matched up the top teams from the East, while Boston College had reached the finals of the regionals before losing to Harvard. Boston College was ranked in the top five in the East after the win so Dartmouth's comeback victory gives the team confidence for the spring.
The team finished its dual match schedule with a 4-2 fall, but Dirksen and Taff aren't quite through. Each of them has made it to the singles draw of the Rolex regionals, which pit top Eastern singles players and doubles teams against each other. Dirksen is expected to be ranked anywhere from 9-16 in the singles draw while Dirksen and Taff may also be ranked as a doubles team. Taff claimed the spot after reeling off wins in her last nine matches.
