Team remains undefeated in Big Ten road matches

In all his years of coaching, IU coach Lin Loring had never experienced a win like the one his team had Sunday.\nThe IU women’s tennis team (17-5, 7-1) headed into the weekend’s matches at Illinois and Purdue with hopes of maintaining its perfect conference road record. And the No. 33 Hoosiers accomplished that, beating the Illini 5-2 on Saturday before completing a comeback 4-3 victory Sunday against the No. 45 Boilermakers.\nIn West Lafayette, the Hoosiers struggled early and quickly fell behind 3-1. IU needed to take the match’s final three points to win. \nLoring’s team didn’t quit, even after falling behind in nearly every singles match. That relentless effort manufactured an unusual come-from-behind win Sunday.\n“It was just a great comeback,” Loring said. “They were basically kicking our butt for the first half of the singles. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been associated with a match where all the points have been comebacks.”\nAfter the 3-1 deficit, sophomore Alba Berdala took the second and third sets in her match to claim the win. \nSenior Laura McGaffigan then won a tight match of her own to tie the score at 3. \nFreshman Lindsey Stuckey was the last Hoosier left on the court, with her team’s fate dependent on the outcome of her final set. Having been in pressure situations before, Stuckey didn’t falter.\nHer decisive 6-1 victory in the third put IU ahead for good.\n“It was good to see a lot of people come through,” McGaffigan said of the team effort behind the comeback. “We all knew that we had to win all of our matches.”\nLoring said that while the Hoosiers struggled early on in most matches, his top doubles duo of McGaffigan and Berdala was able to tally its second upset in as many weeks.\nThe previous Sunday, the two beat Northwestern’s No. 13-ranked doubles combination of Georgia Rose and Alexis Prousis. On Sunday, Berdala and McGaffigan beat the No. 45 pair of Brooke Beier and Mallory Voelker 8-6.\n“(Beier and Voelker) have won a lot of matches at No. 1 doubles,” Loring said, “so that was just a huge win.”\nThe weekend’s two victories improved IU’s record to 5-0 in Big Ten road matches. Considering the strength of the conference, Loring said, that’s significant this far into the season.\n“For this team to go 5-0 so far on the road – I would have never thought that at the beginning of the season.”