Eagles Are Too Much For Ailing Crimson

With an 11-day break between matches, the Harvard women’s tennis team thought it would be rested and well for Friday’s contest against the No. 75 Boston College Eagles (6-1). The Crimson (0-6), however, caught a bug during the layoff and had to make last minute personnel changes. The Eagles took advantage of the makeshift lineup as they earned a 5-2 victory at the Murr Center.

“Pretty much everyone playing today had some sort of an illness,” junior Laura Peterzan said. “But I think we did a good job. We competed really hard.”

As the first sets of the singles portion came to a close, it looked as if Harvard had a solid chance of winning the match. The Crimson led in four of the singles matches, and captain Stephanie Schnitter was making a come-from-behind charge at No. 2. Nevertheless, the possibility of victory soon faded as Harvard ended up dropping four out of the six first sets.

The closest of the first sets came in the No. 3 slot between Crimson freshman Samantha Rosekrans and BC’s Lauren Cash. Up 5-1, Rosekrans was on the verge of taking the set, but Cash won six-straight games and finished with a 7-5 win. Rosekrans, like many of the other Harvard players, was affected by sickness, which may have contributed to her lack of endurance.

“She was definitely a little bit woozy and wasn’t as light on her feet as she usually is,” Harvard coach Traci Green said. “We weren’t going to pull her, she was dying to stay out there.”

Rosekrans couldn’t keep up with Cash’s consistent play in the second set and fell, 6-2. The match win by the Eagles at No. 3 clinched the overall match.

Though Schnitter pushed her match to three sets, the outcome had no impact on the overall match score. BC’s Dasha Cherkasov defeated the senior in the third set to take the day’s final match.

The Crimson’s two wins came from Peterzan at No. 1 singles and junior Catriona Stewart in the No. 4 spot. Peterzan dominated in her match against Lana Krasnopolsky, who was previously undefeated in singles play. The two ripped groundstrokes back and forth from the baseline, but it was Peterzan who outlasted and overpowered her opponent in the rallies. The junior earned a 6-3, 6-1 victory.

“I just tried to stay really focused and composed,” Peterzan said. “Everything kind of clicked.”

Stewart won her first singles match of the season easily by a score of 6-2, 6-2.

Two Harvard players saw their first action of the season. At No. 6 singles, freshman Margarita Krivitski competed well in the early portion of each set but could not hang on toward the end and dropped the match, 6-2, 6-2.

“In her first match of the year as a freshman she did really well today,” Green said. “She was out there running down every ball. We couldn’t ask for any more.”

Junior Rachel Gottlieb also played her first match of the year in doubles. She paired with senior and outgoing Crimson photography executive Vilsa Curto at No. 3, but lost, 8-2.

“Rachel and Vilsa started off great,” Green said. “Number three had great energy from the beginning.”

The other two Crimson teams also lost as the Eagles swept the doubles portion to earn the point. At No. 1 doubles, Peterzan and Rosekrans suffered an 8-2 defeat, and at the No. 2 level Schnitter and Stewart fell, 8-5.

“A lot of us were playing together for the first time, [since] we had to swap the lineup at the last minute,” Peterzan said. “It was a bit of a slow start, but it got more competitive at the end.”

Harvard’s top singles player, junior Beier Ko, was out with the flu and freshman star Agnes Sibilski is still sidelined by injury.

Next weekend the Crimson will try to capture its first win of the season on the road against Wisconsin and Northwestern.

—Staff writer Jake I. Fisher can be reached at jifisher@fas.harvard.edu.