Women's Tennis Shares Ivy Championship with Cornell, Dartmouth

They’re too young. They can’t win the doubles point. They can’t stay healthy. In the first month of the season, it was easy to find holes in the play of the Harvard women’s tennis team.

On paper, the 2017 campaign may have seemed like a rebuilding one for the Crimson. Coach Traci Green was welcoming seven freshmen to a team that had won just two Ivy League matches last season. Its most experienced player—captain June Lee—had battled injuries during her first three years in Cambridge.

When the team traveled to Ohio State for ITA Kick-off Weekend in January, Harvard was trotting out a sophomore at its top singles spot and flanking her with three first-years. Highly-touted freshman Lexi Milunovich went down with an injury in late January and would miss two months. In doubles action early on in the season, the Crimson looked inexperienced at some points and straight up outmatched at others.

Harvard topped foes BU and Cornell early in the season but suffered a 4-1 setback to a Brown team that it would face again eight weeks later. The pieces were in place and the talent level was evident early on, but the team did not put it all together as a group until when it mattered the most.

Flash forward to April and No. 49 Harvard (17-8, 5-2 Ivy League) entered the final weekend of conference play with a chance to win its first Ivy League Championship since 2009. Eight weeks after falling to Brown at ECAC Championships, the Crimson topped the Bears in Providence on Apr. 7 to move to 2-0 in league play. Following a 5-2 win against Princeton (13-9, 4-3) on Saturday, Harvard clinched a share of the Cherly and Richard Gouse Trophy.

“It’s been an incredible experience and journey,” Lee said. “Before I even came here, one of my goals was that I wanted our team to win Ivies. It’s just an amazing feeling because I feel like [our] hard work has really paid off. As a senior, I feel like I’ve made somewhat of an impact on the team and the program and my teammates individually.”

With a chance to win the title outright, Harvard fell to Penn, 4-3, on Sunday. The Crimson will share the championship with Cornell and Dartmouth, with the Big Green receiving the conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid by virtue of its victory over the Quakers (11-9, 4-3) on Saturday. It will be a waiting game for Harvard until May 2, when the field for the tournament is announced by the NCAA’s selection committee.

PENN, 4, HARVARD, 3

The Crimson entered Sunday afternoon’s match controlling its own destiny. If Harvard beat Penn, it would have the Ivy League crown all to itself and would punch its ticket to the Big Dance. If not, it would have to share the title depending on what happened in the day’s other three matches. The Quakers, who were mathematically eliminated from the championship race, did not look like a team that had nothing to play for.

“It’s so amazing to think that so many of our matches were 4-3 in the Ivies,” Green said. “We’re just so proud to be in a league that’s so strong and getting better every year. We hope to build on what we started this year. We enjoy playing in a tough league, it makes us tougher.”

For the second day in a row, the Crimson took the doubles point, but this time its opponent rallied back. The guests were eliminated from championship contention following their loss to Dartmouth on Saturday but came out firing to rain on the Harvard parade once singles play began. Lee and sophomore Erica Oosterhout claimed a doubles win at the No. 1 position and sophomore Sabrina Xiong and junior Annika Ringblom clinched the doubles point at the third spot.

The day’s first two singles points went to the Quakers as freshmen Jenna Friedel and Irene Lu both suffered straight set defeats. Friedel’s came at No. 4, falling to Penn junior Lina Qostal, 7-5, 6-1. Lu came up short against sophomore Marta Kowalska. With the Quakers leading 2-1, Lee fittingly tied the match at two with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Ria Vaidya at second singles. It was the last home match of Lee’s four-year career with the Crimson.

Harvard’s postseason hopes rested on the day’s final three matches. If the team could salvage two, it would be NCAA Tournament-bound. Unfortunately for the Crimson, Penn had other plans. After dropping a first set that went to a tiebreaker, Milunovich conceded the second to freshman Ashley Zhu. The win put the Quakers up a set with two matches to play. Oosterhout and Ringblom both had their matches go to third sets. Oosterhout dropped her first set to Penn senior Kana Daniel, the nation’s No. 105 player. The Harvard sophomore took a back-and-forth second set as her teammates and the Harvard fans cheered her on. Oosterhout rode the momentum to a 6-4 win in the third set to tie the match at three.

As their matches taking place simultaneously, Ringblom and Oosterhout went in different directions. The Harvard junior overpowered Penn freshman Sarah Dreyfuss in the first set and had a chance to put her away for good in the second. Ringblom held a 6-5 lead in the second set but was unable to hold on, falling 7-6 in a second set tiebreaker. Dreyfuss pulled away in the decisive third, winning six of the nine games and opening the door for the rest of the Ivy League.

“Penn had nothing to lose and we have to give them credit for how tough they were,” Lee said. “Being a point down and coming back all the way, you definitely have to give them credit. They played all-out, with nothing to lose and it came down to one match. They were the tougher team today.”

HARVARD, 5, PRINCETON, 2

Harvard’s most lopsided win of conference play came in what was the team’s most important match to date. Needing a victory to clinch at least a share of the Ivy League crown, the Crimson roared to a sweep in doubles and never looked back. Freshman Natasha Gonzalez and Milunovich took all six games in their match against Princeton’s Gaby Kollner and Sivan Krems while junior Annika Ringblom and sophomore Sabrina Xiong clinched the all-important doubles point with a 6-3 win over Clare McKee and Katrine Steffensen.

“Going into Princeton, everyone was really pumped,” Lee said. “The weekend before was really motivating. Our really close match with Cornell made us work even harder during the week. We knew exactly what we had to do.”

Milunovich and Ringblom were both able to carry their momentum from doubles action into singles. Playing at No. 3, Milunovich topped fellow freshman Tiffany Chen, 7-6, 6-1. It was a bounceback win for Milunovich, who dropped both of her singles matches last weekend in New York. It took Ringblom three sets to dispatch Krems at fourth singles but the New Canaan, Conn., native remained perfect for the day.

Oosterhout and Lee made it a sweep at the top four spots for Harvard with wins at first and second singles, respectively. Oosterhout handed Steffensen her second loss of the afternoon, 7-5, 6-2. Lee followed suit at No. 2, topping fellow senior Caroline Joyce in straight sets. The Crimson’s only hiccups on the afternoon came at fifth and sixth singles. Freshman Irene Lu fell in straight sets to sophomore Nicole Kalhorn while her classmate and former doubles partner suffered a setback in an epic three set affair, ultimately falling 3-6, 7-6, 11-9.

—Staff writer Stephen J. Gleason can be reached at stephen.gleason@thecrimson.com.