With Ivies looming, a satisfactory split

Before the women's tennis team took on Marshall and William & Mary this weekend, senior co-captain Julia Koulbitskaya predicted that her team would have to be "well-prepared at the bottom of the lineup."

Her words proved prophetic. On Saturday, the Quakers lost the top two singles slots, but victories further down the depth chart propelled them an upset over No. 62 Marshall, 5-2. A day later, Penn had no such luck, falling to No. 25 William & Mary 6-1 yesterday.

"I'm very pleased the lower side of our lineup stepped up [against Marshall]," coach Mike Dowd said, "but we still have a lot of confidence at one and two."

"Hopefully going into the Ivy season, all our positions will be firing at once," he added.

The Red and Blue also won the doubles point against Marshall. Their No. 24 doubles team of Koulbitskaya and Ekaterina Kosminskaya bested the Thundering Herd's slightly-higher ranked No. 23 Kellie Schmitt and Karolina Soor, 8-6. Penn's third doubles team of the day - Michelle Mitchell and Charlotte Tansill - also won a close match, 8-6.

Mitchell, a senior, thinks that the practice the Quakers had playing outdoors in California over spring break gave them an advantage against Marshall, which was playing its first outdoor game.

And even though the Quakers lost to the Tribe by a lopsided 6-1 margin the next day, Dowd insists the score was misleading.

"We played hard today. There were some close matches that could've gone either way," he said. "Overall, we played one of the top teams in the country and we competed toe-to-toe with them for most of the day."

The Quakers lost more than just the match, though. Kosminskaya - Penn's star sophomore - was forced to retire due to tendonitis after losing the first set 6-1.

Dowd said that the injury is not serious; Kosminskaya will likely have a lighter practice schedule this week but should not miss significant time. She already sat out the beginning of the season with the flu.

Maria Anisimova and Charlotte Tansill took two of the Tribe's nationally-ranked players to three sets in their respective losing matches.

The Quakers won its only point of the day in No. 6 singles, where freshman Alexa Ely defeated the Tribe's Carmen Pop 7-5.

With Ivy play starting this weekend, Dowd was satisfied with the weekend split.

"It was an important win for us," he said. "We beat a nationally-ranked team and hopefully that will help us get into the national ranking."

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