Despite a match full of high energy, the Ithaca College women’s tennis team came up short 3–6 against the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers in the Reis Tennis Center on March 24.
To start the day off, the teams faced off in the doubles competition, where the Engineers were victorious in all three matches over the South Hill squad. In the No. 1 spot, the Bombers’ duo of junior Taylor Crain and first-year student Alys Pop matched up against junior Lorna Flores Gonzalez and sophomore Nicole Ridenour, who are ranked No. 4 in all of Region II for doubles. Crain and Pop fought a tough battle, but eventually fell 8–2.
The Engineers clinched the other two doubles points in both the No. 2 and No. 3 spot to lead 3–0. In the No. 2 spot, sophomore Sabrina Cheung and first–year student Kendall Curley fell short 8–2 against the graduate student duo of Krisia Flores Gonzalez and Lina Krumpel. In the No. 3 spot, first-year students Maddie Sutro and Ava Casell-Lapetina competed in what seemed to be a nail-biting match against first-year student Prisha Rapur and junior Brooke Bauer. Sutro and Casell-Lapetina started to mount a comeback, but could not come up on top, falling 8–4.
Moving on to the singles, Crain got the Bombers started with their first points in the No. 1 spot after she got a win by opponent retirement over Ridenour. The match was highly anticipated with Ridenour being ranked No. 5 and Crain being ranked No. 6 in Region II for singles, however Ridenour dealt with an injury in her leg and wasn’t able to continue shortly into the match.
The Bombers would lose in the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 6 single spots, however were able to grab wins from Curley and Cheung in the No. 4 and No. 5 single spots. In the No. 4 single spot, Curley took on Krisia Flores Gonzalez in a match that came down to the wire. After winning her first set 7–6, Curley lost her second 6–3 to advance the match to a 10-point tiebreaker. Curley won the tiebreaker 10–7 and said not working yourself up in moments like these is key.
“I just kind of breathe,” Curley said. “Take deep breaths in and deep breathes out and try not to get too mad because if I get too mad, I start to do worse.”
Additionally, Curley said she is looking to use this win as a motivation boost for her next match against William Smith College.
“I’m going to just take the win and use it to build confidence for the next match and just keep trying my best and go practice hard this week,” Curley said.
Although the Bombers came up short 6–3, head coach Tom Rischoff said he is still proud of the effort that the team put in against such tough competition.
“I thought today was good,” Rishcoff said. “We played a top 20 team. I thought we came out there [and] we controlled what we could. It was 6–3 against a really, really strong team … one of the top teams in the Liberty League, so I’m really confident with the way that we competed and I’m really excited to see our future.”
The Bombers record goes to 4-5 on the year with this being their first conference loss. The squad will continue their Liberty League play against the William Smith College Herons at 4 p.m. March 29 in Geneva, NY.
