Big Ten uphill battle begins with Penn State rematch

The IU women’s tennis team will face Penn State today in the first round of the Big Ten tournament in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The Hoosiers (13-10, 3-7) are the seventh seed and will play a 10th-seeded Nittany Lions team that IU beat 6-1 Sunday in its last regular-season match.

The match was more competitive than the 6-1 score may indicate, though, as four of the singles matches went three sets.

IU coach Lin Loring said his team’s recent win against Penn State (6-15, 2-8) will give the players confidence but that they don’t expect the match to be easy.

“(Beating them) definitely helps but we also know it was a very, very close match, and we played them at home,” Loring said. “We know it’s going to be very different on a neutral court, and it could be outside, which also totally changes the match.”

If the Hoosiers get past Penn State they will face second-seeded Northwestern (17-7, 9-1), the 19th-ranked team in the country. The teams last met April 16 in Evanston, Ill., with the Wildcats prevailing 6-1.

Since IU is out of contention for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, the team would have to win four matches in four days to capture the Big Ten’s automatic bid. Loring said the Hoosiers know where they stand.

“You just kind of play in the tournament for fun when you already know you’re in and we already know we’re out,” he said. “Realistically, we’ve got two top 20 nationally-ranked teams at one and two in our conference so we know we’re going to have to play much better than we have been if we’re going to win the tournament.”

Taking this realistic approach, Loring said he just wants his team to play solidly against Penn State and go from there.

“We know it’s a real long shot for us to win the tournament,” Loring said. “We just would like to play a really good match again against Penn State, and everything after that is the icing on the cake.”