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MEN'S TENNIS
Hoosiers go 1-1 at ITA Kick-Off

The IU men’s tennis team entered this weekend’s ITA Kick-Off looking for some consistency.

The Hoosiers didn’t find any.

After advancing to Sunday’s championship match of the four team tournament in Oxford, Miss., IU fell 4-0 to No. 10 Ole Miss. 

The Hoosiers (1-1) dropped all six matches to the Rebels (3-0), including all three singles duels in straight sets. Junior Santiago Gruter and freshman Josh MacTaggart, who were playing at No. 1 and No. 2 singles, respectively, each lost in a second-set tiebreak.

“Today, really, there is nothing good to say,” said IU coach Randy Bloemendaal. “Our team did not handle the situation very well as a group and you just can’t allow that to happen. I mean, you look at MacTaggart and he was clearly better than that kid.

Physically, I know we’re just as good or better than that team so it’s a hard loss.”

The struggles for the Hoosiers started in doubles play when they dropped back-to-back matches without much of a fight.

The duo of junior Lachlan Ferguson and sophomore Jeremy Langer limped out of their match at No. 1 doubles, losing 8-1 to the Ole Miss team of Tucker Vorster and Jonas Lutjen. Bloemendaal said both players’ legs were sore following play on Saturday.

After sophomore Will Kendall and sophomore Stephen Vogl dropped an 8-3 decision to Marcel and Chris Thiemann, IU had lost all of its emotional energy and was well on its way to a disappointing loss. 

The Hoosiers opened the weekend with a 4-2 victory over No. 52 Columbia on Saturday. IU won at No. 1 and 3 doubles to take the doubles point and used singles wins by Langer at No. 2, MacTaggart at No. 4, Kendall at No. 5 and sophomore Maxime Armengaud at No. 6 to defeat the Lions (1-1).

With the Hoosiers ahead 3-2 and two matches left to play, Kendall stepped up.
After falling behind early, the sophomore played better tennis and came back to win convincingly against Columbia’s Rejeev Deb Sen (7-6, 6-3).

“That was a good, hard-fought win for us,” Bloemendaal said. “We had a chance to put them away early but they came back on us. They took the momentum and then we ended up taking it back from them. I thought our guys did really well.”

The Hoosiers will be back in action next Saturday when they host Tennessee Tech and Butler.

- Justin Albers

SWIM AND DIVE
Hoosier women victorious against Cardinals

The No. 14 IU women’s swimming and diving team pulled off an impressive win against No. 13 Louisville.

IU outswam the Cardinals in their home pool by winning nine events and setting seven pool records in a meet IU coach Ray Looze described as “a battle."

The Hoosiers were led by senior Kate Fesenko, who had three first-place finishes. Fesenko was undefeated in the 200-backstroke during the regular season.
 
The red cap, an award giving to the best swimmer of the meet, went to sophomore Brittany Strumbel. She posted a season best time in the 200-freestyle which she won on the final touch to give the Hoosiers a big boost. She also anchored the first-place 400-freestyle relay.

Looze was extremely impressed by his team’s performance against the Cardinals.

“It was a team effort,” he said. “It just took a lot of timely performances. It was certainly a battle that heartened us in a place like Louisville.”

Sophomore Gabby Agostino led the Hoosier divers as IU took second through fifth places in the one-meter competition.

This was the women’s final meet of the regular season. The Hoosiers now have two weeks to prepare for Big Ten Championships and NCAA Championships.

Looze knows this meet was a great way to end the season.

“Hopefully we can take this and use it in the Big Ten Championships,” he said.  

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Twelve season-best times and six event victories were not enough for the No. 25 IU men’s swimming and diving team to uproot No. 16 Louisville.

Although the Hoosiers did not come out on top of this meet, it was a great improvement from their last few performances.

IU coach Ray Looze finally got some of the leadership and finishes he had been looking for.

“Our guys swam a lot tougher,” he said. “We still have a number of guys to get going, but I was really pleased with how our distance swimmers came around.”

Junior Ilya Larin was one of those distance swimmers that had a season best time in the 1,000-freestyle.

The Hoosiers also got strong meets from junior Titus Knight, who won the 200 and 500-freestyle, and sophomore Tyler Shedron, who is the top IU butterflier, with a season best time and third place finish in the 200-fly.

IU divers finished 1-2-3 in the 1-meter competition led by senior David Piercy.

The Hoosiers have one final meet at home against Purdue to prepare for the Big Ten Championships.

“We are still a work in progress, but there are good signs as far as toughness,” said Looze.

- Caitlin Ursini

WOMEN'S TENNIS
IU uses consistency to stay unbeaten

With a pair of resounding wins Saturday, the IU women’s tennis team ran its record to 6-0 for the second time in as many years.

The day opened with a matchup against Marquette, which the Hoosiers took 6-1, including taking the doubles point that had eluded the team against its toughest competition this year.

“Marquette was very similar to Miami of Ohio and Western Michigan in the sense that,
if we don’t play well, we lose the match,” IU Coach Lin Loring said. “Score-wise, Western Michigan and Miami were a lot closer, but all three teams were similar. I was very pleased about the fact that we won all three doubles.”

In addition to winning the doubles point, the Hoosiers took the top five singles matches in straight sets, including a 6-2, 6-1 win for sophomore Evgeniya Vertesheva at No. 1 singles and a 6-1, 6-2 triumph at No. 3 singles for junior Myriam Sopel.

“I thought we played a little more consistent top-to-bottom, in the Marquette match especially,” Loring said. “I thought we did a good job of keeping our focus in the singles. We got down early on a couple courts, but we did a real nice job of coming back and getting the job done.”

The Hoosiers followed their morning win with an afternoon defeat of the Cincinnati Bearcats, 7-0.

“We knew Cincinnati would be the weaker of the two teams. We did a good job of keeping our focus,” Loring said.

Next up for the Hoosiers is the top-ranked and defending national champion Duke Blue Devils, who ended the Hoosiers’ season-opening six-game win streak last year.

- Max McCombs

WOMEN'S GOLF
Nochta helps lead Hoosiers past Badgers

For the second straight season, senior Laura Nochta shot a 71 at the Westlake Cup in Phoenix, but this time her score helped lead the Hoosiers to victory.

IU revenged last year’s match play loss to the Wisconsin Badgers with a 9.5 to 8.5 win to start the 2010 season.

The scoring format at the Westlake Cup was vastly different than the tournaments the Hoosiers played in this fall.

A Nassau scoring format will was used, which means each team will play all six players in six separate head to head matches.  The two teams will play six individual match play matches with one point being awarded to the winning player on the front nine, one to the winning player on the back nine and then one for the total score.

Senior Kellye Belcher was the top points scorer for the Hoosiers, capturing all three of the possible points while shooting a 74.

Junior Cecilia Orevik was next with a 75, which was good enough for 2.5 points for the team score.

Despite shooting a 76, freshman Pamela Burneski did not register any points for the Hoosiers.

Rounding out the Hoosiers lineup were freshman Jacqueline Yanch and Kate Coons, who both shot 78.

The Hoosiers used the Westlake Cup as a warm-up before the Lady Puerto Rico Classic played Feb. 7-9. The Lady Puerto Rico Classic is one of the premier events in women’s college golf and includes many nationally ranked teams throughout the United States.

“That is our first invitational of the new year, and it is a really really good field,” Wallman said. “Both Indiana and Wisconsin are in the field (in Puerto Rico) so to have a warm up match before we get down there is nice so we can have the rust knocked off and be ready to roll.”

- Kevin Bowen