April 24, 2014
2014 Big Ten Tournament Bracket | Big Ten Tournament Central
EVANSTON, Ill. - Dasha Sapogova (Minsk, Belarus) earned her 15th win of the season moving her into a tie for fourth-most among freshman in the Big Ten this season as the Nittany Lions (6-18, 2-10 Big Ten) fell to No. 48 Indiana (19-8, 7-5 Big Ten) Thursday afternoon, 4-1.
"Our team competed very hard from the outset and Indiana just outplayed us," said head coach Chris Cagle after the match. "That's the way it goes in sports sometimes and everybody is disappointed for our year to end but I'm proud of our team overall this year."
The Indiana Hoosiers began the match winning the doubles point allowing them to take a 1-0 lead heading into singles. They jumped out to an early lead at the No. 2 match where Sophie Garre and Shannon Murdy held off Carmen Sandor (Toronto, Canada) and Katherine Whiteaway (Sawbridgeworth, England) for an 8-3 victory.
Marie-Frederique Bedard (Montreal, Canada) and Taylor Shukow (Boca Raton, Fla.) fell to Kayla Fujimoto and Alecia Kauss at the No. 3 doubles match, 8-4, allowing Indiana to clinch the early point.
The match between Sapogova and Katia Blik (Moscow, Russia) and the Hoosier's Carolyn Chupa and Katie Klyczek went unfinished with both teams squared at five games apiece.
Indiana increased their lead when Murdy took three of the final four games in the second set at No. 5 singles against Whiteaway to win the set and the match 6-0, 6-4. At No. 4, Shukow fell to Kauss, 6-1, 6-3, allowing the Hoosiers to go up 3-0 in the match.
Sapogova earned her second win of the season over Klyczek at the No. 1 singles position with a 6-1, 7-5 victory to cut the deficit to two points.
"Dasha played extremely well," said Cagle. "Getting off to a fast start this time helped her set the tone for her match and she was able to close it out."
The Hoosiers clinched the first round victory when Sophie Garre defeated Blik at No. 2 singles, 6-0, 6-2. The matches at No. 3 and No. 6 singles went unfinished with Sandor leading 6-1, 3-4 at the second singles match and Bedard trailing 6-2, 4-1 at the sixth spot.
"Coach Fenwick and myself are so appreciative of the opportunity to work with this team and in particular our three seniors," Cagle said. "Their leadership over their years at Penn State helped to set a standard for this team in the upcoming years. The future is bright, we have a young team that has a season under their belt of competitive college tennis now and we'll be excited to get to work in the fall and for what next year holds in store for our program."
With the win, Indiana moves on to the quarterfinals where they will face the tournament's two-seed, No. 16 Northwestern tomorrow at 2 p.m. CT.
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