All you tennis fans out there can sport your "Not Penn State" T-shirts with pride, as the Penn women defeated Penn State on Friday in a well-played match, 5-2.
Quakers coach Michael Dowd is confident that his team has earned Pennsylvania bragging rights.
Penn's last three matches against Penn State have ended similarly. The Red and Blue took the top four singles matches along with all three doubles matches.
Easy win, right?
However, it was a "closer match than it seemed," according to Dowd. Out of six singles matches, four went to three sets, which was a little too close for the coach's comfort.
Regardless, "I was impressed with how tough all my players were in the clutch," Dowd said.
Dowd was especially happy with the dominant play he has continually seen out of freshman Julia Koulbitskaya, who plays at No. 1 for the Quakers. On Friday she confidently wore down Penn State veteran Maaria Husain, creating what Dowd considered to be the "big turn in the match."
Dowd hopes that winning this match will give the team confidence for next week's big date at the University of Virginia. UVA is nationally ranked and will be a serious test for this young team.
Penn will "have to play better to beat UVA," he said.
Koulbitskaya echoed her coach.
"We didn't play as well as we [could], but everyone fought really hard in a number of close matches."
