The No. 64 Dartmouth women's tennis team fell 5-2 in a road contest at Boston University on Saturday. The Big Green's third consecutive loss dropped the team to 10-4 on the year.
The lady racketeers began the tilt by sweeping the three doubles matches to attain an early 1-0 advantage. Leading the way at the top position on the ladder was the tandem of Lindsay Winingham '07 and Maggie Suydam '08, who edged the Terriers' top team 9-7.
At No. 2, Megan Zebroski '08 and co-captain Jayme Ahmed '05 continued their blistering doubles play with an 8-6 victory. The duo now holds a 3-0 record in dual match doubles contests this season. Dartmouth completed its doubles domination with another win at the third position, where Ann Scott '06 and Natalie O'Rourke '08 emerged victorious by the score of 8-5.
In singles, however, the momentum swung decidedly in the favor of the home BU squad. The Terriers prevailed in five of the six matches, with no Dartmouth player coming closer than 6-3 in any set in those contests.
The lone singles highlight for the Big Green came at No. 3, where Suydam notched her second victory of the afternoon with a 6-3, 6-0 triumph over Aimee Charest. Suydam had moved up a spot from her usual fourth position on the singles ladder, making her convincing win even more impressive.
The Big Green played with a depleted lineup, as both Margaret Fitchet '08 and Kerry Snow '07 were unable to compete. BU also had previously scored wins over Ancient Eight foes Brown, Princeton and Cornell. Nevertheless, Dartmouth will need to pick up its level of play in its upcoming conference matches in order to achieve a high finish in the Ivy League.
"Even though we had a tough loss yesterday, I think we can use it as a wake up call to get ready for the Ivies," Zebroski said. "Every Ivy match will be tough, so we really need to focus and work together if we want to be successful for the rest of the season."
Dartmouth begins its slate of conference matches this weekend, competing on the road against Columbia next Friday at 2 p.m. and Cornell on Saturday at noon.
