Hoosiers still unbeaten after trip to Kansas

Going on the road for the first time in its dual-match season, the IU women's tennis team had more to worry about than just their pair of opponents. But neither the Drake Bulldogs nor the nationally ranked Kansas Jayhawks were able to hand the Hoosiers their first loss.\nIU beat both teams 6-1.\nIU coach Lin Loring said his team would have to play well to beat Kansas on the road. Entering the match, the Hoosiers outranked the Jayhawks 43 to 59, according to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association. IU held a 4-1 series lead between the schools, including a win in Bloomington last year.\nLoring said he expected a tougher match this time around. Not only would the Hoosiers have to overcome KU's home-court advantage, but Loring also considered this year's Jayhawks to be stronger than the group IU defeated a year ago.\nAfter nearly six hours of play, IU's 6-1 victory over Kansas was more decisive than its 5-2 win a year ago, yet Loring said that "the score's a little deceiving."\nIU split the first two doubles matches with Kansas, but the third match -- which would determine who received the doubles point -- went to IU sophomore Stephanie Heller and junior Brianna Williams via a tiebreaker. Loring said this match was crucial in swinging both the momentum and the match in the Hoosiers' favor.\nKansas only took one of their six singles matches against the Hoosiers after the tiebreaker. Though the 9:30 a.m. start marked the first action of the day and of the spring season for the Jayhawks, Loring said the team seemed deflated after losing the doubles point.\nAfter defeating Kansas, IU went on to pummel Drake. The Bulldogs did manage one point against the Hoosiers, and Loring credited the slip to his team's fatigue and said that factor was why it was important to face Kansas first.\n"We wouldn't have scheduled it any other way," Loring said. "We wouldn't have given the competitive advantage to Kansas."\nWilliams said before the match that the team had been trying new doubles combinations in practice after the team lost the doubles point in its match against Western Michigan last weekend. In Saturday's two matches, the Hoosiers won five of six doubles matches and took both points. The only loss came against KU's top team, ranked by the ITA as the No. 2 doubles team in the Central region.\nLoring said the Hoosiers will continue to work on improving in this area, but the goal is to find compatible partners more than it is to win matches at this point in the season.\n"We played new combinations this week," he said. "We're just going to keep experimenting until we're comfortable with the combinations we have"