March 30, 2014
EVANSTON, Ill. - The Penn State women's tennis team (4-13, 0-5) were bested by No. 11 Northwestern (11-5, 5-0) on the road Sunday afternoon, 7-0. The Nittany Lions dropped all eight finished matches on the day.
The Wildcats jumped out to a quick lead winning the doubles point with a lineup that featured two pairs ranked in the ITA Doubles Poll. Manon Peri and Belinda Niu earned the first win for Northwestern knocking off Taylor Shukow (Boca Raton, Fla.) and Lisa Petruzillo (Muttontown, N.Y.) in the No. 3 match, 8-0.
Northwestern took the match's first point when No. 21 Veronica Corning and Alicia Barnett topped Katia Blik (Moscow, Russia) and Dasha Sapogova (Minsk, Belarus) by a score of 8-2. The match at No. 2 went unfinished with No. 72 Maddie Lipp and Nida Hamilton holding onto a 5-4 lead when Northwestern clinched the doubles point at No. 1.
In singles Jillian Rooney added to the Wildcats lead winning the No. 5 match, 6-0, 6-0. Shortly after Maddie Lipp made it a three-point game with a 6-0, 6-0 win of her own over Emily Rivers (Washington D.C.).
Northwestern clinched the victory when Hamilton earned the Wildcats fourth point with a 6-1, 6-0 win against Shukow at the No. 4 position. At No. 2 singles No. 36 Belinda Niu defeated Blik in two sets, 6-2, 6-1.
After dropping the first set to No. 44 Corning, Sapogova fought back to take a 6-5 lead in the second set looking to send the match to a super tiebreaker. Corning was able to fend off the effort and take the final two games to put Northwestern up 6-0 in the match.
The final point in the match came down to No. 3 singles where Peri knocked off Carmen Sandor (Toronto, Canada) 6-2, 6-3 to give Northwestern a 7-0 shutout victory and remain perfect against the Nittany Lions in the all-time series.
Penn State will return to Happy Valley to begin their final homestand of the season next weekend when Wisconsin and Minnesota come to town. The match with Wisconsin is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Friday and the Nittany Lions will wrap up the weekend with Minnesota at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
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