Hoosiers outlast Gophers, advance to Big Ten semifinals

By the skin of their teeth, the Hoosiers are still alive in their quest for a Big Ten Tournament title.  

The final twist in a dramatic quarterfinal battle with the fourth-seeded Gophers went the way of fifth-seeded Indiana, as the No. 27 Hoosiers (23-8, 7-4) outlasted Minnesota 4-3 in Evanston, Ill., to advance to the tournament’s semifinals for the second consecutive year.

IU overturned a late 3-2 deficit with clutch third-set theatrics by Stephen Vogl and Josh MacTaggart, avenging a home defeat to the Gophers (13-7, 8-3) by the same score earlier this month and setting up a chance for back-to-back days of redemption.  

Saturday, the Hoosiers will face No. 3 Ohio State, who have already handed them two lopsided defeats, 4-0 shutout in Columbus on January 29th and a 6-1 setback in Bloomington on March 25th.  

Before the cream and crimson could dream of revenge against the Buckeyes, though, they had to fight off a strong Minnesota team Friday afternoon in a contest that featured massive momentum shifts and fantastic finishes in both singles and doubles play.

The match began in positive fashion for the Hoosiers, as they grabbed the initial point when MacTaggart and Alastair Barnes squeaked past Leandro Toledo and Juan Pablo Ramirez at No. 2 doubles by a 9-8 (4) mark.  Earlier, Vogl and Will Kendall had beaten Jack Hamburg and Phillip Arndt 8-4 at No. 3, while the No. 77 tandem of Isade Juneau and Jeremy Langer lost 8-6 to Minnesota’s top-ranked and the country’s 37th rated duo, Rok Bonin and Julian Dehn.

After the preliminary ebb and flow of the six singles contests settled into a rhythm, a 6-3, 6-0 victory by Will Kendall at No. 5 briefly doubled IU’s advantage.  However, the Gophers’ Rok Bonin halved it almost immediately thereafter with his second defeat of Isade Juneau this month, a 6-4, 6-3 decision.

With the score now favoring the Hoosiers 2-1, IU only required a split of the match’s four remaining battles to secure a Saturday date with the Buckeyes, who had advanced earlier in the day by easing past Nebraska 4-0.  

The most likely source of an additional point looked to be MacTaggart, who had won the first set 6-4 and, with a 5-4 second set lead, and appeared to be in position to close out No. 89 Leandro Toledo.  The Big Ten Player of the Week, however, proceeded to surrender the next three games, conceding the set 7-5 and casting doubt on which Hoosier would provide the next triumph—or if it would be provided at all.

IU’s uncertain standing was made even more precarious by the state of the other three matches in action, as Jeremy Langer, Stephen Vogl, and Dimitrije Tasic had all dropped the first sets of their respective bouts.  

Then, in a stunningly swift turn of events that called to mind visions of the Gophers’ turnaround a few weeks ago, Langer and Tasic fell within moments of one another.  After Phillip Arndt beat Langer 6-2, 7-6 (3), Minnesota’s Jack Hamburg followed suit, completing a second set comeback to defeat Tasic, 6-3, 6-3.

The losses meant that the Hoosiers had seen their early two point advantage not only erased but surmounted, and now were staring down the barrel of a 3-2 deficit and further heartbreak at the hands of the Gophers.

Its margin of error suddenly reduced to zilch, IU’s only path left to team victory and a semi-final date with Ohio State required wins from both MacTaggart and Vogl, who were both entrenched in tension-wrought third sets.  

The task became less daunting almost immediately, though, thanks to an early MacTaggart surge, which propelled him to a 3-0 advantage, while Vogl played Julian Dehn even through the first four games, arriving at a 2-2 tally.  Though Toledo clawed his way to a trio of games in the final set, he ultimately bowed out to MacTaggart, whose 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 triumph evened the overall score at 3-3, setting the stage for a winner-take-all denouement starring Vogl and Julian Dehn.

After gaining a break only to give it back, Vogl avoided a tiebreak—and heartbreak—by taking the last two games of the 4-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5 contest, finally supplying the Hoosiers with the point they needed to book their place in Saturday’s semifinals.