With its win on Friday, the No. 60 Big Green men tied the record for most wins in a season by a Dartmouth team with 17, and it claimed sole possession of the record on Sunday with its 18th win of the season.
"It's really exciting," co-captain Xander Centenari '13 said. "It's a testament to our preparation. We're not necessarily the most talented team, but we work better and we prepare as well or better than any other team in the league so we can be confident when we take the court." In its match against Brown (16-6, 2-3 Ivy), Dartmouth grabbed the doubles point by taking two of three matches and went on to take four of six singles matches to secure the win. Both of the Big Green losses came in tight matches, with Chris Kipouras '15 narrowly falling, 7-5, 7-5, at the No. 4 position and Brandon DeBot '14 losing, 10-7, in a third-set super tiebreaker at No. 6.
"We went out firing and played a great doubles point and came out in singles again firing to take the win," co-captain Michael Laser '12 said.
After a quick turnaround, the Big Green traveled to play Yale (13-10, 2-4 Ivy) on Sunday. The team was wary of letting its guard down after a hard-fought win the day before.
"We learned a good lesson last weekend," Centenari said. "After a pretty emotional victory over Princeton [University], we came out flat against [the University of Pennsylvania]."
After dropping a tight match at No. 1 doubles and securing the win at No. 2, the doubles point came down to the No. 3 spot. Fighting off multiple match points, the team of Cameron Ghorbani '14 and Mike Jacobs '13 stormed back from a 7-5 deficit to take the win and the doubles point for the Big Green, 9-7. The team also had a strong showing in singles, as Kipouras, Chris Ho '12 and DeBot all earned three-set wins for the Big Green.
The women's team kicked off the weekend at Brown (17-6, 3-2 Ivy), where it fell, 5-2. After taking all three tightly contested doubles matches to get the point, Brown continued its success in singles competition. The Big Green was unable to edge out the Bears in key singles matches, with Akiko Okuda '15 falling, 6-3, 7-5, at the No. 2 position and Janet Liu '15 dropping the deciding super tiebreaker, 10-2, after splitting the first two sets at No. 3.
Dartmouth's two victories came at No. 5 and No. 6, where Theresa Smith '15 and Rachel Decker-Sadowski '14 won their matches 6-2, 6-3 and 6-1, 6-1, respectively.
Many of the matches were tightly contested, coming down to a few breaks in each match that did not end in Dartmouth's favor.
"We're trying to make the one or two points swing our way and change the momentum," co-captain Sarah Leonard '13 said.
The Big Green came home on Sunday, where it fell to No. 30 Yale (18-3, 6-0 Ivy), 6-1, after being forced to play indoors due to rain. The team struggled in doubles, getting swept at all three spots to lose the point. Dartmouth lost all but one of its singles matches, with Sabrina Stewart '14 pulling out a tight match at No. 5, 7-6, 7-5.
Leonard emphasized that the team is confident despite the tough losses, as the scores did not indicate how close the matches actually were.
"The matches were close and could have swung either way," she said. "We'll get them next time, there's no doubt in my mind."
The Dartmouth teams will close out their seasons next week against Harvard University. The Big Green men will travel to Cambridge, Mass. with a share of the Ivy League title on the line.
