The Dartmouth women's tennis team collected its first Ivy win of the season in downing Cornell by the score of 4-3 on Friday. The Big Green then dropped its two subsequent league matches, falling to Columbia 5-2 on Saturday and Brown 6-1 on Tuesday.
The win against Cornell came in dramatic fashion, as Dartmouth erased a 3-0 deficit by storming back to capture the final four matches and secure the victory. Leading the charge was Cat Crandall '04 at No. 2 singles, who claimed a straight-set triumph over the Big Red's Laura Tallent 6-1, 7-5.
Also attaining wins for the Big Green were Sarah McNally '05 at No. 3 singles, Ann Scott '06 at No. 5 and Evie Stevens '05. In doubles action, Cornell gained the doubles point despite a victory by Jayme Ahmed '05 and Katie Jaxheimer '06 at the No. 2 position.
The lady racketeers nearly gained a weekend sweep, but Columbia edged Dartmouth in another hotly-contested Ancient Eight encounter, as the home-standing Lions managed to avenge last year's loss to the Big Green.
In doubles, the tandem of Ahmed and Jaxheimer claimed its second consecutive victory in disposing of their opponents 8-4. However, Columbia took the other two matches to again deprive Dartmouth of the doubles point.
After dropping the first two singles contests, the Big Green found itself again in a 3-0 hole. Just like at Cornell, the Big Green women continued to fight their way back into the match, and the four remaining singles encounters all went to three sets. Unfortunately, Dartmouth was only able to claim two of those four critical matches.
At No. 1, Ahmed picked up her second triumph of the afternoon, vanquishing Shelley Mittal 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. Then, at No. 5, Scott finished an undefeated weekend of singles play in pulling a Mark Philippoussis by gaining victory only in tiebreakers in edging Iana Dimkova 7-6, 3-6, 7-6.
"As a team we had a great weekend," co-captain Lisa Francazio '03 said. "Of course it would be ideal to come home with two Ws instead of one, but other than that things couldn't really have gone better.
"We have dramatically improved in doubles over the year, and the results were showing this weekend as we barely dropped the doubles point in each match."
The Big Green returned to Hanover to play Brown in a match that had been postponed earlier in the campaign due to poor weather conditions. In fact, the weather ended up playing a major role in the matchup. In playing outside on the Topliff Courts for the first time in competition this year, both teams had to deal with blustery winds.
For the third straight match, Dartmouth came up one win short in doubles. The first doubles pairing of Crandall and Arden Fredeking '04 put up an impressive performance in winning 8-5. Yet, the Bears claimed the other two matches and thereby gained the doubles point for an early 1-0 advantage.
In singles, the lone Dartmouth triumph came courtesy of Ahmed at the top position in the lineup. Ahmed thoroughly trounced Kerry Meath 6-0, 6-2. Yet Brown ended up victorious in the remaining five contests.
"It was challenging for us to mentally prepare ourselves for a sudden outdoor match during the week," Ahmed said. "A lot of us felt as though we weren't competing at our greatest, but we took a lot of positives out of the match. We've learned from this match and are now preparing for similar circumstances playing UPenn."
Dartmouth now stands at 8-11 on the season, with a 1-3 mark in Ivy League competition.
The Big Green will next hit the courts for a pair of home matches against Pennsylvania and Prince-ton on Friday and Saturday. The Penn match will commence at 3:00, and the Princeton match will begin at noon.
