The No. 33 Wolfpack women’s tennis team was defeated by No. 27 Syracuse by a slim 4-3 margin on senior night. Winning seven of its last nine matches, the Pack was aiming to build some momentum and move up the rankings in its final match, but still enters the postseason with high hopes.
The Wolfpack (16-13, 7-7 ACC) got out to a hot start in doubles and took a 3-2 lead in court one doubles, and 4-1 leads on the other two courts through five games. The Pack wrapped up quickly and won courts two and three by a score of 6-1.
After securing the doubles point, the Wolfpack saw strong play early in singles. Head coach Simon Earnshaw mentioned this, and his consequent disappointment with the end of the game.
“I thought we were excellent the first two hours of today’s match,” Earnshaw said. “And then the last hour we got outworked by the other team. Obviously things are situational, but you want to be the better team at the end of the match, not necessarily the start of the match.”
With the teams splitting the first two singles matches, the Wolfpack was up one. The Pack’s prospects looked promising as NC State won the first set on two other courts.
On court three, freshman Taylor Bridges, who holds the most ACC singles wins recorded in one season in program history, won the first set 6-3.
Her opponent Sofya Golubovskaya was not fazed by the first set defeat though, and sent it to a third after a 6-3 victory in the second. In the deciding set, Bridges was unable to get her momentum back, and suffered a 6-3, 3-6 and 2-6 loss.
Meanwhile, Tayla Stenta, the lone senior on the team, was up 4-2 in the first set, before easing up and letting Syracuse’s Libi Mesh come back.
“Going out there with nothing to lose, I think that was our problem today when we got up.” Stenta said. “I know in myself, I did that; I just got passive. When we’re up we got to focus on being aggressive, so we’ll focus on that for the next match.”
Stenta lost the first set 7-5, but managed to keep the second set close and had it all tied up at three before succumbing to Mesh by a score of 5-7, 3-6.
On court one, sophomore No. 33 Anna Rogers faced the Orange’s No. 5 Gabriela Knutson in the marquee matchup of the evening.
Taking the first set in a strong showing, Rogers won by a score of 6-4, staying poised throughout and forcing Knutson into errors.
In a very close second set, Rogers had the opportunity to close the match out after taking a 5-4 lead. Her strong first serves and volleys proved to be a struggle for Knutson. Almost managing to break Knutson’s serve at 6-5, Rogers nearly closed it out, but tied at 40 all, an ace by Knutson gave her the game point. The match went to a tie-breaker where Knutson turned up the heat and won 7-1 to win the second set, 7-6.
Rogers briefly held a 2-1 lead before Knutson stormed ahead and won the match 6-4, 7-6, 6-3.
Even though the match didn’t have implications on the outcome of the game, the final match was between junior Claudia Wiktorin and Anna Shkudun. Wiktorin won the second set, 6-3, by using her powerful forehand to put away points after losing the first set 4-6.
With the third set tied at four games apiece. Wiktorin stayed consistent and closed out the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
“I thought we all went out there with really good energy,” Stenta said. “It was a shame it didn’t end the way we wanted to, but hopefully that makes us more motivated for the ACC tournament.”
The Wolfpack will next play on Thursday in the ACC Tournament against Clemson at 9 a.m. at Cary Tennis Park.
