Despite defeating three top-25 teams over the weekend, the Blue Devils fell short of capturing the program’s second ITA National Indoor Championship title.
No. 3 Duke (8-1) lost 4-0 to No. 4 UCLA (9-0) in Charlottesville, Va. in Monday’s championship match.
The Blue Devils started out the weekend by barely sliding past No. 23 Mississippi (4-4) in a 4-3 matchup. The team came out the following day appearing completely new, however, defeating No. 10 Michigan (5-3) 4-0.
“The match against Michigan was a big match for us because we were struggling in our first match,” Duke head coach Jamie Ashworth said. “We needed to comeback with a good showing and we really gave Michigan no confidence at all.”
The momentum carried over into their following match, in which Duke outplayed No. 7 California (6-1), 4-1, in a match that featured 11 nationally ranked singles players.
Duke took on the Bruins in the final, hoping that the energy that had carried them through the weekend would continue. UCLA advanced to the championship with wins over No. 16 Southern California, No. 12 Northwestern and No. 13 Georgia Tech by a combined score of 12-2.
All went well for the Blue Devils early on, as freshman Beatrice Capra and sophomore Rachel Kahan upset Robin Anderson and Skylar Morton, the No. 12 doubles team in the nation. The Duke pair is now 9-0 on the 2012 season.
UCLA would rally for the doubles point, however, as 23rd-ranked Bruins Courtney Dolehide and Pamela Montez beat junior Mary Clayton and freshman Ester Goldfeld, 8-4, in the No. 1 doubles spot. In the rubber match, sophomore Hanna Mar and freshman Annie Mulholland lost in a narrow 9-7 match to UCLA’s McCall Jones and Carling Seguso. The loss marked the first time that the Blue Devils had dropped the doubles point thus far in the season.
“That doubles point, when you are playing a team like UCLA or any team that is top five in the country, is so big momentum-wise because it is so hard to win four singles matches against anybody,” Ashworth said.
In singles play, Duke found itself in trouble early on, losing four out of six of its first sets. Freshman Monica Turewicz, who had earlier clinched the victory against Michigan with a singles win, fell 7-5, 6-4 to Kaitlin Ray, putting the Bruins up 2-0.
Clayton won her first set, 6-4, but was unable to hold onto the lead, falling to Chanelle Van Nguyen. Soon after, seventh-ranked Capra and eighth-ranked Anderson finished a rematch of their November meeting, which Capra won in a third-set tiebreaker. This time, however, Anderson emerged victorious, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2, giving UCLA the 4-0 victory.
Despite the lopsided score, the match was one of the Blue Devils’ closest all year, as all but one match was carried into the third set. Additionally, Mar and Goldfeld had taken the lead in their third sets and Kahan was tied up when play was stopped.
“It was a tough loss, losing 4-0, but it was the closest 4-0 that I have ever been a part of,” Ashworth said. “That was a tough one to lose, but I thought we did a good job of fighting back and trying to recover it.”
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