April 25, 2013
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - No. 44 Penn State (14-8, 4-7) fell to Minnesota (10-14, 3-8) in the first round of the 2013 Big Ten Tournament in Bloomington, Ind. Thursday afternoon. The win is the second for the Golden Gophers against Penn State this season having won their last meeting 4-3 in Minneapolis.
The Nittany Lions fell behind early dropping the doubles point losing at No. 2 and 3. Tereza Brichacova and Jessika Mozia bested Marie-Frederique Bedard (Montreal, Canada) and Jacqueline Zuhse (Boca Raton, Fla.) 8-5 to go up 1-0 in the doubles contest.
Doron Muravnik and Alexa Palen topped Carmen Sandor (Toronto, Canada) and Devan McCluskey (Kent, England) at No. 2 winning 8-3 to clinch the point for the Gophers. The match between Petra Januskova (Ottawa, Canada) and Chelsea Utting (Peachtree City, Ga.) and Natallia Pintusava and Paula Rincon Otero at No. 1 went unfinished with the Nittany Lions duo ranked No. 24 in the nation leading 7-5 at the time.
Minnesota took the momentum into singles where the won the first set in 4 of the six matches. Alexa Lambert put the Gophers up 2-0 knocking off Sandor in the No. 4 match 6-3, 6-3. Palen finished her match with Bedard soon after winning 6-1, 6-4 to put Minnesota up 3-0.
McCluskey kept the match alive for Penn State winning at No. 4 against Mozia 6-3, 7-5 to give the Nittany Lions their first point of the match. After falling behind losing the first set Zuhse jumped ahead in the second set against Rincon Otero looking to send it to a third set at No. 3. Rincon Otero was able to fend off the effort from Zuhse and comeback to win in straight sets 6-2, 7-5 securing the victory for the Gophers.
The No. 1 and 2 matches went unfinished on the day. No. 69 Januskova led Pintusava 6-4, 5-4 when the match was called. After dropping the first set to Brichacova 6-1, Utting led in the second set 2-1 when Minnesota clinched the match.
The win was only the second in the past 10 matches for Minnesota. The other win in that span also came against Penn State. The Golden Gophers will move on to the second round and face Nebraska, the tournament's 2-seed, tomorrow at 2 p.m.
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